Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

by Dice Warwick

First published 23rd of December, 2014

In wartime Equestria, Stable-Tec was one of the most advanced companies there is, with some of the most talented ponies working there, Slowtrot happens to not be one of them, or have a choice to why he is there.

Slowtrot is just another normal earth pony living in wartime Equestria, working jobs, hoping not to get drafted, and getting a nice cold beer at the end of the day. He may not be the brightest pony, or the swiftest, or even that good with words, but he has his health, some luck, and his heart in the right place, not that wartime Equestria cares. So when he finds himself not in his Applewood apartment, but inside the Stable-Tec R&D Stable, feeling out of place is an understatement, and the least of his worry's.

Cover art by MylittleSheepy

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List of cannon:
- Fallout: Equestria
- Project Horizons
- Pink Eyes
- Monsters

Chapter 1 - Applewood Blues

The war never changed, it just grew. I remember an old pony telling me that once at the bar. Most of what he said was just bitter rambling, but that one thing just stuck into the back of my mind and never left. When the war started it was about coal and gems, the zebras had the coal, we had the gems, but neither of us wanted to share. Before long, we didn't need the coal, and they didn't need the gems. The war had no excuse to go on, but it grew, finding a new reason to fight. Every act of war was more extreme then the last, weapons got bigger, speeches more dramatic, and hate... the hate felt like a blanket of mist that draped over the land. It was true, the war had not changed, it never needed to happen back then, and it didn't need to go on now, but it did, it grew, it grew so big that it would soon devour us all in fire, despair, and most of all in the madness of hate. But what is one pony to do to stop it, no plea for sanity would be heard, no rash action would make them rethink their path, no sacrifice would be big enough to remind them that ponies were not meant to go war. So I just waited for the end, lived my life, worked the day, slept in my bed at night, and hoped that maybe, just maybe this would not all end in fire. What else was there for me to do?

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Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 1 - Applewood blues

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

- Isaac Asimov

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Hate is a strong word, I would much rather say strongly dislike, it's a lot less personal for me to dislike something, than to hate it. So what would I strongly dislike? Well, for the last few years it has been the job placement office. There were a lot of little things that just irked me about coming to this place. The first was simple, lines going out the door half the time, you would think there would be less ponies looking for work with a war going on, but no, if you can't score a ministry job you will need two jobs to just support yourself. The second was something I'd never say out loud, the military recruiters were just non stop, even the office workers would hint at me joining the military, something I had no interest in. The last was an inevitability, actually talking to the office worker about getting another job.

The light blue unicorn mare never even looked up at me. With how many ponies she had to deal with, I could understand why. "Mister Slowtrot, I see this is the fourth time you have been here this year, and the ninth time in the last four years." She still did not look up, which did make me both relieved and a bit unconformable - maybe she was at that point were she was just zombied out at work, I've been there.

Wait, nine jobs? I thought it was six – no, wait, I also was able to get two other jobs outside of this office.... damn, eleven jobs in four years, I really suck at this work stuff. "Yes! That's right, I'm here to apply for another job." Oh this felt uncomfortable, at least I'd remembered to shower before coming here... but the dirty pony in front of me may have passed some of his smell onto me. Oh I hate- strongly dislike coming here.

The mare took a glance at me. I'm sure I was giving her my best 'not trying too hard' smile, but then again it was only a glance, so it might not have mattered. "Are you currently still employed at any of these jobs we placed you at? We do have others that need work." That was a hoof to the gut.

"No."

"Reasons why?"

"I was let go."

"Yes, the reasons why?"

I sunk into my uncomfortable seat. Why do they have to ask this question every damn time? Each time I'm here they have to be sadistic about it. It's not my fault it takes me longer to get a feel for a job then the other ponies, or that reading and writing were my weak points, or that I can't read a pony's feelings for the life of me, or that the customers have interesting things to talk about... okay, maybe it is me that has problems, but I am reliable and always healthy, that's something, right?

"Mister Slowtrot?"

"Oh, um, incompatibility, the managers felt that the job was not right for me." Well, they actually said that I was not right for the job.

"All four of them?"

"All of them." All eleven of them, more like.

"Well I'm sorry to tell you this, but due to the high demand of ponies looking for work, we had to start enforcing a limit for each pony that applies - you somehow are already over that limit."

"That limit is..?"

"It's two... a year."

Okay, I have to say that did lighten my spirits up a bit, just not enough to give me any joy out of it. "So I'll be going then?"

"Please do."

I really, really strongly dislike this place - not hate, that would be personal. So doing my best to ignore the military recruiter, I left the job placement office, and went back out into the city.

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The city of Applewood. The best city to get lost in, with its bright lights, friendly ponies, fun attractions, and so much propaganda that it's become a parody of itself. War posters were everywhere, nearly every movie that was being released nowadays had some form of pro war theme going. When I was younger, there were a bunch of smaller theaters that would show old or independent films, but nowadays it's all the same. Most ponies say that it's just that the war flicks are what's in, but if you pay attention you can see the hoof prints of the Ministry of Image all over the place - not that I would say it out loud. I heard that Las Pegasus didn't have it so bad, something to do with a political party called the Enclave, the only group I know of to push against the war.

And now I'd made myself feel down by thinking about the war - not like there were really any other things to talk about, it's all that was ever happening. Why did food prices go up each month? It's the war. Why is it it so hard to even find a box of nails? It's the war. Why is it so hard to get a mare-friend? It's the... well that's more my problem, and now I'm feeling depressed.

There are a few things I like to do when feeling depressed, the main thing I do - which was what I was going to do - is get a beer and a hay burger, good stuff. But it seamed that Stable-Tec was doing another demonstration, which blocked off the street where my favorite place to eat and drink, Sleepy Hooves Diner, was. Now, I don't like crowds, and this was a big crowd, Stable-Tec always drew a crowd, but I was going to have my hay burger and beer- well beers, a good three should make me feel better.

Stepping into the crowded street, I could see that there were different stall that Stable-Tec had set up. There was "PipBucks and you", where it looked like ponies were trying on PipBucks of different colors, "Styles of Stable-Tec, which was the same as before, but with Stable barding. Actually, that was all they were doing at each stall I could see, the only one that was different was the one that had in big bold words...

"RAFFLE!"

"Whaa!" Okay, I don't like being in crowds.

"Would you like to sign up for the raffle? It's free." It was a mare, a really pretty unicorn mare. Her orange coat was bright next to her blue stable barding, and her cherry-red mane and tail matched the red-and-green PipBuck she had on.

"Oh, a raffle? What's the prize?"

"There's lots of prizes! The big one's a ticket to a stable 90, we just got it finished a few days ago, so a lucky few will have a safe place to go when things turn bad." Well, that explained why the crowd was so big; everypony seemed desperate to get into a Stable. The real possibility of the end of our world does put a scare into a pony. I was not above such fears, but there was nothing I can do about it, other then hope that things did not get that bad.

"Okay, so where do I sign?"

She giggled. It was a cute giggle. "Don't worry, just give me your name, and I'll put it down for you." She raised her PipBuck, in a cute way, and smiled. It was a cute smile. Did I mention she was cute?

"Oh, the name's Slowtrot. Just Slowtrot."

Looking at the PipBuck, she used her magic to press a few buttons before looking back up at me, she had lovely pink eyes. "All done, just wait for the raffle to start, and if you're lucky we might call your name." She trotted off. She had a cute flank too, even her cutie mark was cute, a peace sign on an orange...

"... And I didn't get her name!" I got myself moving to catch up to her, but a crowd of ponies were already blocking my path, and she vanished from sight. Did I mention I hate crowds? So I gave up. A mare that pretty probably already had a special somepony, and she had a job, something I lacked... "Beer it is."

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It took longer then it should have done, but I finally got to Sleepy Hooves Diner. I was less then happy to see it was quite busy, though I felt a bit stupid for not foreseeing that, how could it not be? Luckily there was a seat at the bar, all the way at the back, near the restrooms' entrance. Not my favorite spot, but it was open. The Diner's radio was also on, though it was just playing the music that was going on outside. Surprisingly enough Stable-Tec had gotten a band and singer to play, though it was nopony I had heard about.

Taking a seat, the manager of the place gave me a nod. Hay Maker was his name, he and his staff were to busy to take my order yet, but I appreciated that he let me know that he knew I was there. He's a good guy. With how busy things were, I knew that even if I got my order in soon, it would take some time for them to get the burger to me. At least I had a seat, and soon some beer. The place was like most diners - old photos, random knick-knacks - though what stood out was a military uniform, and a photo, the owners daughter had died in combat years before, a sight that had become common in the city, and one reason I did not what to join up.

"So, same as before?" It was one of the mares that works at the diner; earth pony, blond mane, tan coat, and a cutie mark of a dictionary. And she has a special somepony. I think her name was Summer Dream.

"Ya, I'll have a cabbage and hay burger, and three glasses of Strong Hoof pale ale."

"Three this time? That will be seventeen bits." I hoofed out a ten-bit coin, a five-bit coin, and two bits. Eating out felt far more expensive without a job.

The first beer came quickly; there were enough staff to keep things moving despite how busy things were, and it was good, pale ales were always a smooth drink. With something to wet my lips, I finally relaxed, well, relaxed to the best of my ability in a busy diner. The music from outside through the radio helped. Most of the music had been upbeat, and the current song was no different, though it would probably be bad business to play sad music when you're trying to sell stuff.

By the end of the song, my burger had arrived, and boy did it smell good, and taste good. The next song was the same as the last (well, different song, same tune), like they were just rewording the last songs in the hope that nopony would care. Nopony seems to. That was when I saw that the diner was starting to fill up with soldiers, uniforms on, short cut for their mane and tail, and all quite intimidating looking. I quickly finished my first beer.

It's not that I have a problem with the troops, or the military, but they seem to have problems with ponies my age not signing up. Well not just them, a lot of ponies. It's almost every day that I'm asked about joining up with the military. You don't have a job? Join the military. Your job is cutting your hours? Join the military. Your job sucks? Join the military. It's why I've eaten at this place for the last few years - the owner hates talking about the war, and so do the staff. Still, that never really stopped their other customers.

The second beer arrived almost as soon as I put my glass up to be refilled, drinking it calmed me down a bit. The soldiers were a bit loud as they took over the other end of the bar, but most of them just stood around. Finishing off the burger, the music had just stopped, and the voice of a farm mare began to talk.

"Hello everypony, and welcome! It's good to see that y'all are enjoying yourselves, and it looks like we have sold out of all our goodies, but worry not - we still have plenty of wonders you can order, just take our catalog on your way out."

The mare's voice sounded charming, a little off beat, but better then some of the squeakers they throw on stage.

"Now I know why y'all are here, so let's get this raffle started. Now we will get our really fancy computer here to sort out your names, and then call y'all for each prize. So our first bunch of winners will be getting a free set of Stable barding! It's stylish and practical...."

I was now more focused on my beer, already half done, feeling like they should offer bigger glasses. The solder had taken up more of the bar, as more of them showed up, the other ponies giving up their seats. Me? I was hoping they did not get this far down.

"Hey Sunflower, you know where we're going to be stationed next? Leave was only meant to be a week."

Wow she talked loud. Okay, just drink your beer, rather than eavesdrop on the nice soldier ponies at the bar, that's rude.

"I was told it's camp 223, but that got scraped, so we're on standing orders right now, why are you asking?"

"I may have been a little drunk when I checked in, but that's what I though they said to me, thanks."

Yet they talk so loud that I don't think I can call it eavesdropping, I just so happen to be in a room with them shouting their conversation. Finishing off my beer (damn I normally don't drink this fast), I was starting to warm up, got to love this good stuff. So I asked for my third glass, but it would take a little time as all the soldiers were getting drinks as well, I really don't like crowds.

At this point I felt a tap on my shoulder. Now with two good glasses in me, I swivelled around in my seat to see who it was. It was one mean-looking stallion. "Can I help you with-" he started.

"-Sorry but I'm into mares" and before I finished turning back to the bar, my brain was firing all the alarms, I'm a bucking moron who is now going to die. My last beer arrived, I mean my third beer, not my last, no not, I'll have plenty more tomorrow, after he is finished digging my grave.

A tap on my shoulder once more. Well at least it was a tap, so it maybe I wasn't dead... yet. Turning, though slower this time, I simply smiled weakly at the earth pony stallion who looked like he had taken a grinder to the face. "Sorry to bother you sir, but my friend needs a seat, and I was seeing if you could give yours up for him." I looked past the stallion and saw a unicorn walking on four prosthetic legs, who was not having an easy time getting through the crowd.

"Uhh, of course! Oh, and the beers are on me." There really was not much for me to say, not that I could think of, and I'm sure that the unicorn could kill me, missing legs or not, so I stepped down, letting his friend have the seat.

"Thanks sir, much appreciated." Such a polite stallion, ponies really should not go to war, bouncing and singing seemed to fit us better. Or was that the beer talking? Probably the beer.

On my way out I could see that the diner had completely filled up with soldiers From the looks of the stable barding that two had on their back, they were actually here for the same thing as the other ponies. So when I hit the ground, I knew I was in trouble, the laughing solidifying that feeling.

"Looks like he's had too much to drink, maybe you need some help home." Getting up I saw that the pony that was talking was a pegasus mare - light purple coat, blue mane with light blue highlights, and a cutie mark of what looked like a megaphone. She was also quite good looking, even the nick on her left ear had its charm. "I could help you home if it's too hard for you to walk, tuck you into bed."

I got myself up, and luckily I could get myself home just fine, really I just wanted to leave before they all got rowdy. "No need, I just tripped, I can get home on my own." Her face scrunched up and the other solders burst out in laughter once more. Did I say something funny?

"Looks like he's not into mares, Foghorn, better luck next time." the group laughed again.

Okay, at this point I would have backed out slowly, put room between me and all of them, and most of all would not say anything like "I am too into mares." Clop me with a train, I'm an idiot. They laughed some more.

The mare- Foghorn stared daggers at me with her eyes, "Oh then what is it, you got a marefriend?" Oh this is bad, soldier mares are way too aggressive, it's fun at first, but they get bite-y, and like whips, I personally didn't like whips, or getting bit.

Solution: say sorry, and get out of there, simple. "No, not right now." New plan: run, run, by the goddesses stop talking and get out of their. "I'm just not..." I finally got myself to shut up, but it was too late. So ya, this was going to get ugly.

"Just not what, into ME personally, was that what YOU were going to say?" If I ever had an ex-marefriend, I think she would be like her, frightening yet sexy, oh dammit, now I'm thinking of her in a sexy number, what is wrong with my brain right now!?

"Well, no not that." I felt my flank hit the door, I had been so concentrated on her that I didn't know we were walking to the door.

"Then what?"

"That well."

"Well?"

When did I get up on my two back hooves, and how was she still eye to eye with me- oh right, pegasi can do that.

"Military mares play too rough." Bucking damn it, she was going to kill me! Prove me right, but kill me. Foghorn looked pissed, the daggers were now cannons, and I think I saw pink pony at their trigger laughing along with the other soldiers. Foghorn pulled her hoof back for a strike, and I pulled mine up to defend myself, but then the world blurred as I felt myself fall back.

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Opening my eyes, I looked up and saw the sign for Sleepy Hooves Diner, which meant I was outside, and so the pain at the back of my head was probably from me falling. Better then getting my face caved in, I guess. Looking at the door, I could see Foghorn being held back by her friends, I could also see she was holding her jaw as though it had been hit... time to go!

Disappearing into the crowd (did I ever tell you that I liked crowds?), I found myself at the raffle. The crowd here was thick, easy enough for me to not be found by an angry pegasus that I may or may not have accidentally kicked in the face.

"Well we got one more prize before the main event, that's right one more before we give out the things you've been waiting for! I present y'all the PipBuck 2500! Now I know what you're thinking - why give this out, we already gave out three PipBuck 3000s? Well that's simple, they're a collectors item, Stable-Tec only made a few of them, but they were just too super duper expensive to make, so the techs had to drop this model and make something smaller, and easier to make."

The PipBuck look a bit bigger the normal 3000s I saw now and then, but what stood out was that it had what looked like a second pipbuck that would attach to the upper leg. The thing would cover all but the hoof, and the shoulder. Overall it looked more like a peace of armor than a PipBuck, and I bet it'd be real uncomfortable to have on.

"....and the winner of this fine piece of tech, is... Slowtrot! Slowtrot, come up and claim your prize!"

I could see the headline now: 'sexy pegasus kills earthpony with a pipbuck 2500 in front of crowd'. Maybe if I don't go and collect it, I'll be safe. Ya, just stand here as that cute orange unicorn points me out... oh clop me with a tank.

Well I give up, I'll take the thing and run, ya that's a good plan, great plan. Getting through the crowd was very annoying, but I didn't see that pegasus whats-her-name anywhere, which was good. On my way, a few ponies gave me some glares - PipBucks were expensive tech, even the outdated ones, so I could understand why they wanted one. The rest of the ponies were more distracted, chatting to themselves about getting into a Stable, I could hear one old mare talk about giving her granddaughter the ticket if she won. Overall, it was the tickets that everyone really wanted, they wanted that peace of mind that if the world did end, they would have a way out, a safe place to stay away from what this stupid war would create. For myself, winning the runner up prize felt close to right. Not that I didn't want a ticket to a Stable, that would be fantastic, but there were better ponies them me that should get it. Though thinking about it, a bunch of assholes were probably going to win this one.

"And here is our winner, Slowtrot! Come on, don't be shy, that's for the MoP's Ministry Mare!"

There was a chuckle from the crowd, but it wasn't the same as the bellowing of the soldiers, making me even more nervous as a walked up the steps. I do dislike crowds.

I could now clearly see the announcer; and older earth pony mare, tan coat, bright green mane, and bucket of apples as her cutie mark. Next to her was the orange unicorn, she was holding the microphone in her magic for the other mare, showing poise even as the speaker abruptly walked up to me. "So how does it feel to get your very own PipBuck? These things are built to last, something you can hand down to even your grandfoals."

Now I've only really been a one night stand for a mare, never having a marefriend myself, so that comment hit me with a little hope mixed with a lot more depression. Not that I showed it, working retail helped with fake smiles. The crowd was really starting to make me feel uneasy, all the ponies looking at me... I never liked crowds. "I feel... lucky." Smooth, real smooth, the crowd can't tell you're a moron with that.

"Well why don't you try it on? Trust me on this, they feel like a second skin." That I doubted, I betted they felt like you had a chunk of steel on your leg, with some padding.

Before I could say that I was not interested in putting on the PipBuck right now, it was already floating in front of me, the orange mare had it in her magic, opening it up for me. "Try it on mister Slowtrot, it wont bite." Well, if she says so, why not, my left leg is free.

The PipBuck clamped onto my left foreleg, and all the way up, just below my shoulder. It all felt a bit off, like something was trying to push into me, and my eyes started to feel like they... wow, lines and numbers, zeros and ones, zeros and one... and gone. Well that was weird... the world had frozen, oh by the goddesses, had the world crashed like the computers I used- no wait, time had just slowed down, why in Tartarus had time slown down? Text appeared before my eyes.

Welcome to the Stable-Tec PiBbuck 2600 registration spell. By registering this PipBuck to yourself this PipBuck will protect all sensitive information, as well the user's mind from tampering. Do you wish to register? Y/N

Wait what... oh, I think I'd heard about PipBucks doing stuff like this. Nothing like this exactly, though. Well, I might as well give it a shot, having everypony frozen was starting to creep me out, like being in a room full of mannequins. So how do I say yes to thi....

Registration spell now active, PipBuck systems will be locked until registration is finished.

Time returned to normal speed. "Everpony, let's give Slowtrot an applause!" the crowd was a bit louder than they were before, but I knew it was for the Stable tickets, which was fine by me. The orange mare lead me off stage, which was nice as I was still a bit confused by the PipBuck, and my eyes were hurting a bit, so I gladly followed her, and away from the staring crowed.

"Sorry you didn't get a ticket Slowtrot, maybe at the next event in a month." She gave me a small smile. If I'd held any resentment, that little smile would have stripped it from me. "I heard it's going to be at the docks, so keep an eye out."

"Thanks, it's not like I expected to win anything, much less a PipBuck, so it's been a good day." She walked to the back exit, opening the curtain for me. "Umm..."

"Yes?"

Okay just be calm and ask her name. "Sorry, I didn't get your name?"

"Well, I didn't give it." Oh I felt it, right in my heart, some pony just stabbed me.

"Oh, sorry, my mistake." I trotted through the exit, not wanting to embarrass myself more.

"It's Warm Breeze, that's my name." I looked back, to see her wave before closing the curtain. Warm Breeze, even her name was cute, oh I am so going to the dock next moth.

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My apartment was just down the street, and well I felt like taking my time to get there, it was probably the alcohol, but I felt my luck was turning up. I still didn't have a job, but Warm Breeze had given me her name, most of the time mares just ignore me. Well, all the time they ignore me, but this was different. "Flowers, flowers, I know roses are too expensive, and well they're all expensive right now, what gives!" Orange coat, red mane and tail. "Coltifornia poppies, and Cardinal flowers! I can easily pick a few outside of the city. I just need to know where Stable-Tec is staying, and have them delivered to Warm Breeze." Wait, would that be too soon, I didn't want to look desperate.

"I thought you said you didn't have a marefriend. I don't like liars." I froze, not as in the weird PipBuck froze, but that normal 'you are going to die' froze.

I did my best to turn around with grace, but failed, nearly falling over as I did so. "Oh hi, umm.. miss?"

"Foghorn, my name is Foghorn" Who names their kid Foghorn? Never mind, that's not important.

Ya, the light purple coat, blue mane pegasus mare had found me, still real good looking in her uniform, and short hair, and still scary. "I'll remember that." I should, I was told fear helped with memory, and if there was something I needed fear to remember, it was remembering names, that's why I said Warm Breeze's name every few steps, just so not to forget it. That was also why I couldn't seem to hold a job, the boss saying stuff like how I should already know all the keywords, or where the parts are, or even the stupid random numbers in the stupid random spots....

"Equestria to idiot, are you there?" Oh her face is way to close to mine!

"Uhh.. well.. sorry, and uhh, well I don't have a marefriend." I quickly backed up. "I also get a bit lost in thought."

"Then pay attention, it's rude to ignore a girl when she's trying to apologize." Wait what? she's here to apologize?

"Ahh, okay?" Dammit, don't talk, just let her not kill you, good plan, great plan.

"It was, well... I was out of line. I had no right to get angry at you like that, or to try to strike you." This was all true, though now I was feeling a bit bad- no Slowtro,t don't fall for the mare's trick, don't feel guilty for what she did. "So, well... I'm sorry." she had a look in her eyes that made me feel like somepony had just shoved a pin in my heart.

Foghorn flapped her wings, slowly lifting up. She was a bit scary, but it was a bit unfair of me to compare her to that other military mare. Though Foghorn did look like she could give me a bite mark that would last a month... not the best memory. "Foghorn, wait!"

She hovered in the air, looking down at me. It was hard to tell if she still looked sad, or was annoyed now. "What?"

"I know this nice place I like to go for lunch, nothing real fancy, but the place is quiet, and the food is good. Mind if I show you it? Would tomorrow sound good?"

I could see a smile, a small one, but only for a moment. "That'd be lovely, but I ship out tomorrow, to Hoofington. But thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it Slowtrot." She flew off, not all that fast, but fast enough that she was gone in seconds. Well now I can blame the war on why I can't get at least a date... ponies really should not go to war.

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Welcome home, a small one-room apartment, that I can only afford for another month... this city is way to expensive to live in.

The walls were bare, but the few shelves I had were piled with the junk I had collected over time. My clock was over ten minutes fast, mostly for getting myself up in time for work... it no longer served a purpose. Ya, I'm going to be homeless before this year is up, how in Tartarus did I already go through four jobs, I'm not that shitty a worker. Putting my saddlebag next to my bed, I just flopped down on the nice and friendly mattress that was my bed, oh did it feel good to lie down... and there's the loose spring.

My eyes had started to hurt, and had a bit of a headache, nothing all that bad, but it felt weird. Rubbing them with my right foreleg did not help, but now I was sure that I could see something just at the corner of my eye. I guessed that it was just stress, I was going to be homeless soon, even if I did pull out more bits from the bank, the rent would bleed me dry. All of this just felt like too much to deal with right at this moment - I rather take such things day by day, and speaking of day, I was feeling a bit drained, and sleepy. "I'll just deal with it tomorrow." I shut my eyes, for whatever didn't need to be done today is tomorrow's problem.

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I awoke to a really bad headache, and my eyes felt like somepony was pushing down one them. I also felt like shit all over. To top it all off there was somepony knocking on my door loudly, and it was only making my head feel worse.

Getting out of bed- well, more sliding out onto the floor with a thud, I walked- well more crawled to the door. It took me a few tries, but I finally hold of the door handle and opened it. "Ey, ye, socks are, are, why?"

I think I could hear a gasp, but what energy I had was gone, so I decided sleep was the best course of action. "I'm a pretty... pony." Fuck my mouth.

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Footnote:

Slowtrot

Special:

Strength: 6

Perception: 4

Endurance: 9

Charisma: 4

Intelligence: 4

Agility: 4

Luck: 9

Trait Identified: One in a Million - When Slowtrot gets a critical hit, it hits hard, but so do his critical fails. x2 multiplier to critical hits and fails.

Trait Identified: Good Natured - Slowtrot studied less-combative skills as he was growing up. His combat skills start at a lower level, but other skills are substantially improved.

Trait Identified: Forgot how to Door - Slowtrot does not remember things as well as other ponies, but he tries his best, for better or worse. Temporarily -1 to intelligences +1 to luck whenever entering a new area.

Trait Identified: Words said Backwards - Slowtrot can read and write, just not as well as other ponies. He gets a -50% boost from magazines and books, but gains 5 points to all skills when music is playing (it helps him concentrate).

Perk Identified: Educated - Slowtrot gets +2 skill points when he gains a new experience level. You gotta love public education.

Author's Notes:

Thanks for giving this story a shot. I'll probably be editing it for a time, but I have a good idea were to take it.

First off I want to thank Kkat for making Fallout Equestria, I have never read this much before in my life, and I'm actually enjoining myself, and even writing a real story which I have never don before. Dark tragic story's about ponies in a apocalyptic wastland are magic.

Second, thanks to Gamma Deekay, your story Monster finally got my gears going on how this journey sould start, Keep up the good work.

Third, thanks to The Wadapan for editing chapter one, it's something that will greatly helps the readers, I do my best, but it's people like you who do it better, and give a story the polish it needs so to shine.

Others I want to thank: Somber for making the most awesome of a mind fuck of a hero story I have ever seen. FuzzyVeeVee for taking all my feels and giving them wings. mimezinga for making a grown man cry. No One for a damn fun story that just sucks me in. FD Imaginations keep up the good work, your heart is in the right place. CoffeeRings has my best wishes, hero is quite the interesting character to read.

I will also reserve thanks to anyone that helps me keep at this, as writing is not my thing, but as you see here, I gave it a shot.

Chapter 2 - Welcome to Stable-Tec

Author's Notes:

I have to give a big thanks to The Wadapan, for the editing, I my have a ton of free time right now, but The Wadapan did not, so check out his story Fallout Equestria: Skyward you might just like it.

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 2 - Welcome to Stable-Tec

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

- Arthur C. Clarke

__________________________

The smell of old dry dirt filled my nose as I looked over a large vineyard, the neat rows of grape vines extended over the horizon, rolling from hill to hill. Now I didn't own it or anything, but still the sight of the vineyard just made me feel happy, like it was, well... it felt right. In the distance I could see two foals, they were too far for me to properly make them out, but I could tell one was purple, the other green. Looking at them made me feel a bit worried, but also happy. That's when I saw her, her... who as she? She seemed harder to focus on than the two foals, and she was waving to me. So were the foals. I don't know why, but I didn't like this, why were they waving, was I going somewhere, why would I be leaving, and where would I go? The land around me turned brown, the green was all gone, and the sky turned a dull gray, and the three ponies before me were gone, and then so was everything else, all of it faded to black.

__________________________

"Name's Slowtrot, has a pale blue mane with a jade-green streak, his coat is purple like grape juice," I could hear a sigh from the slightly high-pitched female voice. "I miss grape juice, we need to order some to be sent down here."

I tried to open my eyes, but my body did not feel like responding, and what little I could see through my half-closed eyes just did not feel right.

"Cutie mark of a... of a horseshoe hooked together with a question mark, I'll have to ask the stallion about that, can't for the life of me think of what it means."

Now my body was still revolting against me, as I gained movement, I gained aches and pains. "What... who... why does... it feels like I've got... did I get hit by a bull?" Oh good, my mouth works, let's hope I don't say anything stupid before I can move.

"That's a stupid question." the somewhat high-pitched female voice spoke, it'd be cute if it didn't sound a bit off.

"Oh good, good to know." The first thing I say is something stupid. Well, I'm already here, so I might as well ask, "So what hit me? I feel horrible."

"Ah, you stupid, stupid simpleton, nothing hit you at all." Okay, now she was starting to annoy me. Not that I could do anything about it, it hurt to even move. Not that I could really move.

"So why do I hurt all over then?" Okay that had to be a good question.

"Good question!" Yes! "You were suffering from magically induced MOF, that's Multiple Organ Failure, and a minor Intracranial Haemorrhage, meaning your brain was bleeding, and you have been asleep for the past three days, which means you smell like an old boot." I tried to move my legs once more, but they were still aching too much to properly move.

"I... I can't seem to move, is there anything else wrong with me?" I could not quite get my eyes to open either. I was starting to feel helpless.

"Oh that's probably because you need a pick-me-up," suddenly all the achenes started to just, well, wash away from me, "That's to make the pain go away, and this is to get you off your dumb fat flank." A sudden rush of energy hit me, and before I knew what was going on, I was standing on top of the bed, eyes wide open. Looking around I saw who it was I was talking to, a young light-pink unicorn mare in a white lab coat that was over stable barding and a nurse's cap on her head, her candy-blue mane was in long twin tails, and her tail was tied together with a pink bow at the end.

"Th-thanks, I feel a lot better now... what did you put in me?" Fair question, had to be, I heard that there were some nasty drugs out there, not that a nurse would put stuff like that in me.

She pulled up two syringes with her magic, and though my eyes were wide open I could not focus long enough to read it. "Well the Med-X here is why you're still not in pain, and this one here is what I like to call Boost." She gave me a cheerful smile that actually made me a bit scared. "It's a compound mix of adrenalin, Buck, caffeine, along with a bunch of vitamins, liquefied, and then I stunk it in your flank." Ya, this mare may be cute, but she was giving me some big red flags.

Feeling better, I decided it was time to move around a bit, and by move around I meant fall off the medical bed I was on. It hurt, just not as much as I though it would.

"Owchie, that's got to hurt, good thing you have that Med-X in you, so any pain your feeling is from being a stupid-head, I mean who walks off a bed? Well, other then you." I don't know what hurt more, my head for hitting the floor, which was a bit numb, or my pride from the fact that she was right. "Or is it that you want to see my flank?" she lifted her lab coat enough to show that she was wearing pink and blue stokings on her back legs, and had a cutie mark of a lollipop in front of a red cross. This girl was not giving me a red flag, she was a red flag. Not that I mind the view.

I could hear a distinctive hiss, as if something maniacal was moving. "Candy Pop! What are you doing with the subject?" Oh good, another mare, and her voice was far less squeaky. I could do with far less high-pitched talking.

"Well Doc Life Beat got all sleepy so I took over, I am his number one assistant y'know." I looked up at Candy Pop, from my awkward position, to see her take a stance of pride. An older earth pony mare in a lab coat walked into my line of sight, she had a tan mane and turquoise coat. Candy Pop sat on the desk and opens her upper legs for a hug. The other mare just walked past her and up to me, Candy Pop looked... I think dejected is the word. "Hmph! Well just so you know, he's ready for whatever you want him to for, not that I care what you want."

Getting back on my hooves with some help, I got a better look at the older mare. She was as tall as I was, which was a bit tall for a mare, her long mane was tied together near the end with a rubber band, and she had thick framed rectangle glasses. She also had a PipBuck on; it looked like the normal ones I had seen before, but with the addition of two antennas above the screen. "Thanks miss, but can you tell me what's going on, the young mare there told me that this PipBuck almost killed me." The mare sighed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from a pocket, taking one of them in her mouth before glancing a Candy Pop. Using her magic to lift a lighter, Candy Pop lit it for her. The smell of the smoke hit me at the first exhale. I may have been used to it from living in the city, but it was still one of my least favorite smells.

"In good time, but first I need to know if you're well enough to walk." I lifted a hoof and stretched. It still hurt, but the pain was more dull now, so I gave her a shrug. "Good, now if you would follow me, I'll give you an explanation elsewhere."

She trotted to the open door, and now that I was actually looking around, I noticed that everything seemed to be made of metal - floor, ceiling, the table I was on, all except a big glass window that looked out into what looked like a medical room, larger then the one I was in. The light was artificial, which did not help the different shades of gray that covered everything. Overall everything looked a bit sad, yet considerably strong. "Um, miss, where am I?"

The mare looked back at me with a smile, "You're in the Stable-Tec Research and Development Stable," She lifted her hoof up to her chest, tapping herself with it, "and the name is June Log Baird. Call me June." She then walked off to what I guessed was the hallway.

"Ah, she's not being all grouchy today, something good must have happened." As I looked back, Candy Pop shoved a lollipop in my mouth. It tasted like strawberries, "That should help you feel better, now go before June Bug gets all grumpy," Not wanting to argue with a high-energy pony, who had already stuck a needle in my flank, I felt it was safer to follow June.

__________________________

The hallway was nice and wide, wide enough for four ponies to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with each other and still have some room, and the ceiling was at least two, maybe two and a half ponies tall - from hoof to shoulder I mean. The gray color itself was everywhere, what was not steel, was concrete, and other then a few signs, and arrows, the gray persisted to everywhere I looked. The only thing that broke the overwhelming blandness was the pastel-colored ponies that we passed by, or I saw through the windows. The other ponies didn't pay me much attention, though to their credit, most of them seemed to be engrossed in some sort of work.

Some of the rooms I looked into were quite interesting, if a bit confusing. One had a bunch of tables lined up, each table had small parts lined up in neat rows, and one unicorn stallion stood in front of them, polishing a gun. He had a cutie mark of a cannon. Another room looked like a diner, with a bunch of ponies sitting around at the tables as one pony in a chef's hat put different-looking food in front of each pony. Only one looked happy with what they got. The rest of the rooms were closed off, leaving me to wonder what was in them, though one door at the end of a hallway has a sign saying "Up to Labs A and residential. Down to Labs C and D." So that would put me in... Labs B would be a good guess. I was also starting to wonder how much further had to walk.

"So you said this was a Stable?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

"The Stable-Tec R&D Stable." Oh right, she did say that. "Now shut up, we're almost there." That was probably a good idea.

I could hear a chime of soft music fill the hallway, catching my attention, "Hello everypony, this is your acting Overmare Healing Herbs, Labs D will be closed for the next 12 hours, if you need to collect any materials from Labs D contact our head of security Tomato Soup and he will provide an escort. I have also been getting complaints about the glowing bottles of Sparkle-Cola that Labs B has made. Pee is not meant to glow in the dark, so stop giving it out." Well at least I know who is in charge now.

June stooped abruptly at a door, I barely avoided walking into her when she did. "Now remember to not touch anything. We don't have anything sensitive in here, but just don't... you understand?" I just nodded my head in agreement. "Good, now to teach you about PipBucks."

I was going to raise a hoof up to ask why I needed to learn about PipBucks, but then felt like that would be a stupid question, as I had an oversized one on my leg.

__________________________

The room was as plain as all the others, all gray, but it did have some comfy-looking seats in the middle, along with what looked like a bulky projector between them. A few posters were on the walls, braking up the overall blandness - most of then were the standard Stable-Tec posters I would see back home, but one was less of a poster and more of a big notice saying, 'I know we don't let the foals on this floor, but stop leaving your Wingboner magazines lying around!' - Overmare Healing Herbs.

In one of the seats rested an older pegasus stallion - he had a light-gray cote and a charcoal-and-silver mane, I could see that his lab coat had holes for his wings due to him sleeping on the projector. Next to him was a unicorn mare - light green coat, dark green mane that had a few strains of gray, she was wearing the same Stable-Tec lab coat that everypony else had, along with small glasses that rested on her nose. She was reading a thick book. Neither one had reacted to our entrance (though admittedly one was asleep), but I could see they both had PipBucks that looked like the one June had on her leg.

"Take a seat, Slowtrot. Save any questions for after the film is finished." June took a seat herself, far from the other two. I found a nice spot that gave me some room - it was a bit closer to the projector then June was, but not so close that it looked like I wanted to touch it. I noticed that the pegasus was drooling on the projector. Getting a nudge from the unicorn - who had put her book away - the pegasus woke up and nearly fell over, but still managed to turn on the projector before having to pick himself up. The unicorn used her magic to turn down the lights as the projector powered up.

The wall lit up as some music began to play - nothing fancy, just a simple tune that went on as numbers on the screen counted down to zero. The black-and-white image of a cartoon pony standing in front of a Stable appeared. “Welcome to Stable-Tec, where we work to save lives from an uncertain future." announced a voiceover. The static image switched to that of a pony family sitting in an underground Stable, eating a meal, while five other ponies above ground burned in cartoon flame. All of them seemed to have a smile on their face.

“Now the first big question we had at Stable-Tec was how to save everpony." continued the speaker. The image switched to three fillies in what looked like a tree house. They all had a thought bubble above them each filled with more smiling, burning, ponies. The image switched again - now one of the fillies had a hoof up. I thought I saw a wing on her back, but it was a bit too small to make out. "The answer to that conundrum was that we can't, so we had the bright idea to stop trying to save everypony, and start saving the few who can be saved." The image switched again, this time there were a lot more foals in the tree house, but two were still outside, on fire. I think one had a tiara on its head. Oh, and they were all smiling.

I was starting to get creeped out by all the smiling ponies and the fire - it was a little funny the first time, but two times killed the joke, and three times just did not sit right with me. I raised my hoof up to get June's attention, but she just held her hoof to her face, so I turned back to the film.

The image was now of the three fillies outside the tree house, they had a big stack of wood next to them. "With this thought in mind, we had a clear goal, and an idea of how to make it a reality." The image switched to show the fillies standing in front of a barn with the words Stable-Tec on it. Its huge doors were open, revealing a whole bunch of ponies inside. "The more, bigger, Stables we make, the more ponies we save."

The image again switched to the barn being closed, and two foals sitting outside, on fire, smiling. They were the same ones from earlier - tough luck. "But remember, we can't save them all. We can only do our best to save as many as we can." The image switched back to that of a pony in a Stable, apparently working at a workbench. "This is were Stable-Tech R&D comes in." Now the pony moved to show a PipBuck in her hooves, which surprised me because I was expecting it to continue with the stupid slideshow. At least there were not ponies on fire with big, stupid smiles on their faces. The cartoon mare walked up to a big gear-shaped door, printed with the initials 'S.T.R.D.S.'. "Your work in this R&D Stable will greatly help Stable-Tec save even more lives." The Stable door on screen opened up like any door on a hinge, and what looked to be three ponies were on the other side, on fire, and still fucking smiling. "For a lot of ponies are going to die out there..." The film came to an abrupt end, and for a short few seconds writing appeared on the screen. I was only able to read one line before it flickered away, leaving just a white screen. The line said: 'Writer - Scootaloo'.

When the projector turned off, the pegasus burst out in laughter, almost falling out of his seat. The lights turned up and the unicorn spoke up. "It's really not that funny, Cloud Bank... now where is the film on PipBuck development..." She was already taking the film out of the projector.

"Don't know, Emerald Field," Could Bank stretched his wings, "it's not in storage, so I grabbed the next best thing." Emerald Field rolled her eyes, placing the film on top of the projector.

June was still facehoofing, and her cigarette was almost gone, so I felt it was at least time to ask a question or two. "Can any pony tell me what is going on, why am I here, and why my PipBuck was trying to kill me?" I heard June groan from behind me. I hoped that meant she was going to tell me what I wanted to know.

Emerald Field sighed before speaking up, "Oh, where to start..." she grumbled as she talked. "First off, your PipBuck is defective, that's why, as you put it, it tried to kill you." She stepped over to the back of the room, where the projector was... projecting. "What you have on your arm is a PipBuck 2600, commissioned by the ministries for transportation of sensitive information. The basic idea was to lock the information into the user until they had reached their goal, but the ministries demanded more safety programs in the PipBuck, a lot more. The end result is what you got on your leg, practically two PipBucks rigged together, and enough spell programs to protect the information from everything, even the user itself. It also just so happens that all those spell somehow liquefy the internal organs of its user." She gave me a smile. I took it as her asking me not to panic about the death-trap clamped onto my leg.

I slumped down into the comfy seat - not that it relaxed me at all, but it was comfy. "So, take it off of me." I looked at all three of them. None of them looked me in the eye, June lighting another cigarette. "You can, can't you?"

This time it was Cloud Bank that spoke up, "Like she said, it's protected from everything, even from us, and we're Stable-Tec's best." He scratched his head as he spoke, "Can't even cut off your leg to get it of, we had a spell program in place for that too." Well it's good to know that I'm not going to be amputated on, but this was becoming to be a bit too much.

“Didn't you make it?”

“Yep.”

"So does that mean I'm going to die?"

"You're not going to die." June had spoken up, no longer on her seat but walking up to me. "The film I was going to show you was about how we make PipBucks, and who made them." Cloud Bank flew over to Emerald Field, "That's us, I'm the head researcher on all PipBuck development." she pointed at Emerald Field "She's our team lead on spell matrix development," she then pointed to Cloud Bank, "and he is the head of our spell matrix debugging team. With all three of us working on this, we will have that PipBuck off before you can say 'death by magic'," June glared at Cloud Bank, "but it may take longer if somepony fails to focus on their work."

I looked at all three of them, breathing out a sigh of relief from the information I was given. I was among professionals, it would be stupid of me to think they can't fix a problem like this, "So I just need to stick around until you can take it off?"

"More or less," June's voice was calm, with a bit of knowing care, "it's not something we will be able to do in one go, not without its personal PipBuck tool, which we don't have, or even have the schematics for." She fiddled with her own PipBuck. "With how thing are at the moment, it's going to be faster to remove the safety spells, spell by spell, then make a new key to open it, and even then we would need to remove a few more enchantments before being able to use a key." I knew they were using simple words for me, but a lot of them were still flying over my head. Still, I think I understood the jist of it.

Cloud Bank walked past me to the door. "Don't worry, when we're done, you will have a normal PipBuck 3000 on your hoof. Just give us time." He opened the door only to jump back. "O-Overmare Healing Herbs, what are you doing down here?"

A unicorn with a mint-colored mane and tail, and a light-blue coat was standing at the door, staring at all of us. Her pale-green eyes had dark bags under them – sure signs of tiredness. "That's acting Overmare... and Head Researcher June Log Baird, why is that stallion still wearing that PipBuck? I, we need it ready yesterday." Her long mane and tail were well-kept, and her lab coat Stable barding almost shined in the light as she walked in. Cloud Bank quickly got out of her way, "We're going to hit a wall unless we either get the 2600 reprogrammed, or you make a new one." Once more things were flying over my head, so I just sat back and watched.

"Herbs, like I told you before," June walk up to Healing Herbs, "we don't have the materials to make another, and if we yank the PipBuck out, it's going to fry, along with it's user." She then placed a hoof on Herbs's shoulder. "Please, get some sleep, you look ready to fall over."

The Overmare backed up, mumbling to herself before looking back at June, "You're right, I.. I should get some sleep, but that PipBuck need to be ready as soon as possible." She turned around and walked out of the room, dragging her hooves as she rounded the corner.

Emerald Field walked up next to me – I didn't even hear her hoof steps when she did. "The Overmare has been like that for the last few months. She's a good pony, but she pushes herself too hard." She was speaking softly and quietly. "Though with how things are, too hard may not be hard enough." She gave a weak little smile, but all this was making me feel like I was more of a wrench in their gears than simply a problem they needed to fix.

When I looked away from Emerald I saw Cloud Bank staring at me, one of his hooves under his chin as his wings twitched a little. "So, boss," June looked his way, "are we going to ask him? We got everything set up for it, if he agrees then it will help get the Overmare off our back." Being the only other he in the room, I knew who Cloud Bank was talking about, but it sounded more than just getting the PipBuck off me.

I looked at June Log Baird, hoping to see some sort of disagreement, but she stood there, not really doing anything. "I think we should fill in Slowtrot first." Ah, Emerald Field was now my favorite pony. "It would be his life a risk," Oh.

"True," June finally spoke up, "both of you are right," she walked out the door before turning around and looking at me, "Mister Slowtrot, just attempting to remove the PipBuck 2600 is going to have dangers, but you're in safe hooves. That said, while you were out, we developed a way to alter the spell matrix as we removed the defective spells from it. This would increase the risk of the defective safety spells activating, but will allow us to conduct tests inbetween. If you agree to this, we can negotiate paying you for your cooperation, and Stable-Tec pays very well." June then motioned with her hoof to follow her, as she walked into the hallway, puffing on her cigarette.

Now the idea of getting paid for doing this did sound tempting, I was out of the job for probably the rest of the year, and a paycheck from Stable-Tec would be better than what any other job would have paid me. Now that I think about it, having Stable-Tec as a reference would be a huge boost, but then if something goes wrong... Come of it, what would go wrong? This is Stable-Tec, they know what they're doing. I glacned around. Emerald Field and Cloud Bank were on ether side of me in the hallway, June in front of us looking back. "Well, there are a lot of benefits if I agree, right?"

Cloud Bank smiled, "We're Stable-Tec, if the worst happens, you're not just in a stable, your in the most advanced stable there is."

I looked at the other two again, before looking back at June, "All right." I realized I had just agreed to be a live pony test subject for something potentially life-threatening. June walked down the hall again, so I did the only reasonable thing for me to do, the only thing I'd done since I woke up – I followed.

__________________________

The hallways were the same as before, lots of gray, some windows that sometimes had interesting stuff going on, but mostly lots of closed doors, and gray. When we finally stopped, the sign next to the door said "PipBuck Lab" which made sense, I was here because of a PipBuck. "Just so you know," Cloud Bank spoke up as the doors opened, "after we got the PipBuck 3000 finished, our department has fallen to the bottom of the payroll." It was a fairly large room, PipBucks strewn everywhere, many hanging on the walls, some on tables, gutted. Schematics for them littered the shelves, there was also a distinctive quiet in here that the rest of the Stable did not have.

Stepping in, I could see that the room was empty, other then a robotic pony who was currently cleaning the floor. June walked up to a large computer, with many cables hanging out of it, some attached to PipBucks, some attached to what looked like a yellow foal-sized rubber suit. She pressed a button on the keyboard, and the computer's large screen turned on. "So you weren't just pulling my hoof, everything is set up... it should just take me a moment to calibrate." She pressed a few more buttons, but nothing on the screen was anything I could understand.

Cloud Bank flew over me and to one of the PipBucks attached to the computer, waving for me to come over as well. "The sooner we get you plugged in, the sooner we can get to work." The more I stared at the contraption, the more I started to feel uncertain. A nudge on my shoulder quickly broke my gaze on the computer.

Emerald Field gave me a friendly smile. "Don't worry, we're just going to download a new program into the PipBuck, it should suppress the more dangerous spells." She gave me another nudge, "Go on, I'll explain more once you're plugged in." For me, the sound of less dangerous spells being active on my leg sounded like an excellent idea. Walking to the contraption, neither June nor Cloud Bank looked over at me – they were far more occupied in pressing buttons. Seeing a green glow around my left shoulder, Emerald Field opened a panel on the upper part of my PipBuck, revealing a few ports. "Right, so any questions?" she plugged three cables into my PipBuck before turning on another loose PipBuck connected to the computer.

I tried to think of a good question, I didn't know enough to even ask something reasonable. Well, other then one question. "Why didn't I die when this thing activated?"

"We spent the last few days looking into that little conundrum," June spoke up, though not turning away from the screen, "we found that one of the more hazardous spells didn't activate, and your body held up under the stress of the others. When I found you at your home, your were nearly dead, but lucky the 2600 accepted the commands from my PipBuck, and went into sleep mode." The screen flickered a bit, but quickly returned to normal. "Right now, the 2600 will stay in sleep mode until I activate it, or if you get too far away from me." So that's why it was off, it was just sleeping... PipBucks can sleep?

Numbers filled my vision for a second before vanishing as Emerald Field tapped the PipBuck she was working on. "Lucky thing that June was in Applewood looking for the 2600 at the time. I still can't believe it got mistaken for a 2500," Oh, yes, they were calling it a 2500 at the raffle... though I only really knew about the 3000, so it's a mistake I would have made myself. "It was just too bad that you already had it on before she could locate it, as you already know."

"The self-destructing programs are sectioned off." Cloud Bank's wings snapped out as he spoke. June began tapping the keyboard faster then before, and when I looked over at Emerald Field, she just gave me a worried look before looking back at the PipBuck she was working with. All the other PipBucks connected to the computer were flickering, and the small environmental suit seemed to have some lights going on inside its spherical glass helmet. My vision once more filled with green ones and zeros, scrolling up so fast that if there was a two amongst them, I would not have spotted it. The scrolling went on for what felt like a minute before fading out. "Connection to V.I. established, transfer of V.I. to the PipBuck is stable." As I looked around, still not knowing what was going on, an image of the Ministry of Peace symbol faded in to fill my vision, and stayed for around ten, no, twelve seconds before fading out. "Transfer finished, compatibility resetting stable, user clearance level clear, counter programs... green." Cloud Bank lifted his hooves in the air in excitement – it looked like things were going well. "All systems green, rebooting PipBuck!"

June relaxed in her chair, taking a long pull from her cigarette before blowing the smoke up into the ceiling. Emerald Field began disconnecting the cables from my PipBuck. "Looks like all the prep-work we did paid off," she said as she placed the cables on a shelf and closed the panel on my PipBuck, "Once the 2600 is finished rebooting, it will function without killing you, but until we can remove the spells from its matrix any tampering with it may turn them back on, so no plugging your PipBuck into anything." That was a piece of information that didn't need repeating, no plugging deadly PipBuck into anything, or it may kill me, check.

Looking at the PipBuck, I could see the screen light up, and a loading bar appear. I just hoped that it was a loading bar, and not a countdown to my death. "Cloud Bank mentioned a V.I. being transferred to my PipBuck, is that some kind of safety program to keep this thing from killing me?" Cloud Bank smirked a little as June rolled her eyes. "No, seriously, what is it?"

"V.I. stands for virtual intelligence – think of it as a smart computer, it can process and respond to new information, but has no capacity for growth beyond its basic programming,” he said with a matter-of-fact tone – like I would know anything about advanced computer stuff. Cloud Bank walked over to the small environmental suit, tapping on the glass helmet, "We got the V.I. from this little wonder here, the Mark VI Omni-Environmental Suit – a MoP original."

"The Ministry of Peace labelled the program as an A.I. – artificial intelligence – but as it turns out it was just an advanced V.I. We were a bit disappointing when we found out." Emerald Field sighed. "I would not put it past the MoP to label trees as sentient lifeforms." She enveloped my PipBuck in her magic, lifting it up closer to her face. "We were able to repossess the V.I. to counteract the PipBuck's spells, and keep it from frying itself when we work on it - a work of genius if I may say so myself." Releasing my leg from her magic, she smirked back at Cloud Bank, who glared in return.

My PipBuck beeped twice, and – to my guess – that meant it was finished rebooting, so I gave the screen a look.

Pipbuck 2600

Stable-Tec

User: Slowtrot

Job Title: Stable-Tec R&D Courier

Clearance level: Low

June looked at the PipBuck and raised an eyebrow. "I thought we agreed that we were going to have it call him a lab-rat."

"The rats would have found that offensive, and Courier just sounds cooler." Cloud Bank shrugged.

Emerald Field walked around to look as well. "At least he isn't keeling over after it turned back on... uh, Slowtrot, are you feeling well?"

Pain was returning to my body, mostly it was the ache from when I woke up, my eyes also had trouble staying open, and damn I was hungry. "I think... the medication is wearing off." Everything got fuzzy before going dark completely.

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Footnote:

Quest perk: Stable-Tec R&D Courier - He may not be officially working for Stable-Tec, but if the PipBuck says he is, who is anypony to disagree? Well, other then the ones writing the paycheck. Slowtrot now has new dialogue options available.

Chapter 3 - Office Party

Author's Notes:

once more, thanks for reading this, like before, this is pre-editor and if you do find some enjoyment from it, I'll let you know in the blog when it has had an editor work it over.

also I want to thank the makers of the fallout equestria wikia, it helped a lot for the small references. That also brings me to the references as well, if you think I got it wrong, or want me to remove it, just let me know, I rather not step on anyone's toes, or if you want me to refrances your story, I'll see what I can do, it just has to be Stable-Tec related.

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 3 - Office Party

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but 'That's funny...”

― Isaac Asimov

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The city around me expanded passed the horizon, almost as it curved to the sky, into the sky. The sidewalks were empty as the ponies walked the streets. Inside the building the ponies ate dinner, upside down, and on the ceiling. also they were all on fire, looking at me, smiling.

"such silly dreams"

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"I told you before to keep the medicine locked up, if any of you ponies develop an addiction, this will be the first place they will go to steal it," I did not recognized this voice, it sounded male, the accent was familiar, but uncommon.

"But what if there's an emergency, unless you give me a key it's going to be hard to help any pony when your off sleeping," that was the high pitched voice of that red flag nurse. Now what was her name, Pop Candy I think.

My eyes opened up, this time having no trouble at all, and my body no longer had the same achenes as before. Looking around slowly I could see Candy Pop, that's her name, holding a first aid box in her magic. Looking around a little more, I could see an old Zebra, which explaind the accent, who was also in a white lab coat. The zebra's black stripes looked a little gray in some spots, and his main and tail were cut short, overall looking nothing like the zebras in all the posters back in Applewood. This was of course when my stomach growled stupidly loud, drawing the attention of the other two in the room.

"Ahh good, looks like your finally awake," the Zebra trotted up to me as I sat up, "and you look much better then when I last saw you." He had a cheery tone to his voice, it reminded me of every doctor, dentist, and any other pony who's job it was to check my heath, "I'm Doctor Lifebeat, and you have already met my assistant Candy Pop," Candy gave me a wink, "I apologize if she did anything unbecoming," she stuck her tong out at the doctor.

This time I carfuly got myself out of the bed, no need to fall on my face a second time in, "how long was I out?"

"For a little over two hours," so it was still the same day, "The boost Candy Pop gave you can have a nasty crash, it's why I don't give her a key to the medicine safes," he looked back as she looked away, acting innocent.

Looking down at my pipbuck, the screen was dark, which was good as the pipbuck could kill me if I messed with it accidentally. I sighed and look back up at the old zebra, "Doctor Lifebeat, was it, I guess I sould go back to the pipbuck lab, can one of you show me were to go."

Lifebeat raised an eyebrow at me before shaking his head sighed to side. "No, no, if you go there now, you will only pass out again. June told me that the pipbuck is safe as long as don't go playing with it, no you need to do something first, befor getting that thing fixed." He taped one of his back hooves twice on the floor, calling Candy Pop over, "you need to eat and drink before you do anything, my assistant will take you to the cafeteria, so get get your energy back up, I don't want to see you on one of thees beds any time soon." That sounded like a much better idea, Life beat was now on my best pony list, well zebra, but still on the list. Candy Pop on the other hand giving me a look, nothing bad, but it did make me a bit worried, she went on my possibly dangerous to my heath list.

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On our way I had to quickly use the toilet, I tried to be polite about it, but Candy Pop just told me to go take a piss.

"You do know you didn't have to say it so loud," she just gave me a smile, this made me feel uncomfortable.

"Who do you think was cleaning up after you when you were out, not the robots I can tell you that," I did not like were this was going, "Lifebeat was to important for the small stuff, so I, his assistant, had to with clean the bed every time you made a mess," oh goddesses she is talking about this.

"okay, please stop, I'd by you a drink if I even had a bit to my name right now."

"Fine, I'll talk about something else, that topic was a bit shitty," I don't know what smelled worse, the pun or the toilet, "so you want to know how you compare to some of the others stallions here," now I was lost again, something I felt like I was going to have to get use to.

"Compare like in how, because I know all of you are going to be smarter then me."

"Obviously, I'm talking about in the bone"

"What?"

"The red rocket, the mighty horn, your little you!"

"What!"

"your dick, I'm talking about your dick!"

This mare was too much, and I was too hungry to run from her, "I got that at red rocket! and why would I want to know, and why do you know or what to talk about such things?" Candy Pop had to be just pushing my buttons, this was too much to be real.

She rolled her eyes, "your going to be as boring as the rest of the stallions here, this blows," she then giggled to herself.

"how did you even get a job here?" I felt that this was a valid question, this mare was like hot pink as a funeral... which now I think about it, would not be that out of place, as a lot of ponies have pink coats, but that was besides the point.

"I, I think I broke my proffers nose," Candy Pop's face scrunched up, no longer having that coy look to it, "that's what miss Healing Herbs told me, and, umm, and I, don't... Oh look were here!" I did not expect that kind of response, but before I could ask about what she meant, my stomach announced it's anticipation for food, pushing any questions out of my mind.

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Oh sweet Celestia I could smell food, when the door opened up I almost jumped in, my low energy was the only thing keeping calm. The cafeteria itself looked like a classic diner, not as nice as Sleepy Hooves, but it's black and wight checker patter floors and red seats gave the place more life then the rest of the gray on gray rooms. there were a few ponies here, not enough to be crowded, but more in one place then I had seen in this place, but with my stomach leading the way, I only concerned myself with the pony that had on a big wight chefs hat standing behind the counter. The chef was a earth pony stallion, his pale green coat was stained different colors where his apron did not cover him, and his red tail was bundled into to a fishnet hood, like that I seen most cooks use.

"I need food, Doctors orders," I gave the chef a smile, "please"

"ahh good, the newcomer has manners, and I have exactly what you need," the pony gave me a smile as he grabbed a green patty, and put it on the grill, and the smell that met my nose filled me with joy, "this shouldn't take long, names Pear Tart, it's good to see a new face."

"thanks, the names Slowtrot, so what are you making?"

"just a burger, it's made with the stuff the organic matter recycling units puts out, so far I call it a success" he pulled out two green buns, placing a the patty, what looked to be fresh green hay, and some white sauce between them. placing it on a plate before sliding it to me, it all looked very green, though the bits of brown were it was cooked, and the white sauce did add some color to the thing, "try it, it's good."

I quickly looked around me, counting Candy Pop and Pear Tart, there was eight ponies in here, excluding myself. I could tell that they were all watching me, though none of them were looking at me directly, but I could catch them taking glances. Some of them had food as well, apples mainly, but none of them had the same green stuff that was placed before me.

Feeling that my stomach could not wait any longer, I decided to eat this mess of green they called a burger. "bottoms up," the burger was surprisingly soft when I bit into it, and seemed to turn into mush as I chewed. The flavor itself was mostly all the same, not bad, but was nothing like the hay burgers I enjoyed. Before I new it, I was eating the last bite, my stomach finally giving me some peace. The last peaces of the green burger had trouble going down, and before I could wave for some water, Pear Tart handed me a glass, waves of relef passed over me as I chugged the drink down.

"so how was it," Pear Tart pulled the plat from me, placing it on top of a few other dirty plats nearby.

"it was okay, it just all tasted the same, and turned into mush, it could also use some salt. But other then that, could I have some more, I'm realy hungry," the chef chuckled to himself before preparing another one for me, this time adding salt. I sipped on the drink he gave me earlier, it tasted like water with light apple flavoring to it, noting I would say was that grate, but right now it hit the spot.

As I waited for the next burger, a mare sat next to me, she was brown coated earthpony with an orange main and tail. "out of all the newcomers here, your the first to come in on a stretcher," she gave me a friendly smile, "I'm Prancer Dancer, a counselor here in the stable, it's my job to help everyone be happy!" she held out a hoof for me to shake, but when I did, she pulled me in and gave me a hug, "now that your all healthy, let's get your party started," I was left a little confused as she let go of me. Some of the other ponies behind me yelled Cheers as Prancer Dancer hopped out of her seat. "I'll go get your gifts!"

Another plate of green burger was placed in front of me, "Don't mind her, shes former M.O.M." Pear Tart poured me more apple water, and started cooking another burger as he talked, "Prancer was one of Pinky's early agents, back when the M.O.M. was about keeping the moral of every pony up. Truthfully there are a lot of early ministry ponies here, even our acting overmare is former M.O.P. not that shed talk about it."

I licked my lips as I finished the burger, the salt did help the flavor a bit, but it still just did not feel right. "so why would the ministry's let that happen, aren't they super..." my seat spun around, putting me face to box with a ribbon enclosed box.

"Now now, less gossiping and more opening of presents!" I lowered the box to see Prancer Dancer holding it with her two fore hooves, "I talked with June after you first got up, and when she told me that you will be working with us, I just knew I had to get you this," after swallowing a bit of the green burger that I was eating, and gave her a small smile.

Pulling on the ribbon, the box opened the rest of the way on it's own, confetti popping as it did. I was a little surprised by it all, but my current state of binge eating lest be a little dull to react. Looking inside I could see stable barding, and a a pare of thin saddle bags, and after lifting them out I saw that they had R&D printed on them were normally a Stable number would go, "you got them, for me?"

"Of cores we got them for you, can't have you work for the R&D and not have an R&D barding, with the saddle bags is an extra bonus." Looking closer at the barding, It only had one sleeve for my right leg, with the other side made to zipper together.m"It's our newest model for stale barding, as it turns out, who ever made the old stable barding didn't think about getting it and off on with pipbuck on your hoof, now try it on." The barding slid on easy enough, with the tabs long enough for my to grab them with my mouth and pull, the zipper around my left shoulder was about the same, if a little herder to pull. The thin saddle bags were more like hard cases, similar to a M.O.P. medical box, and when I press m hoof inside of the open saddle bag it expand outwards. "That I saw lying around and picking up dust in manufacturing, and if your going to be a courier, your going to need cool saddle bags to hold stuff in." putting it on over my back and securing it around my belly, I started to feel at least a little less out of place. Prancer gave me a smile and nod before walking to the other tables. "well now that you look official, why don't you say high to the others here."

I chose to quickly gulp down more of the apple water before getting out of my seat, I also took another big bite of the green burger, it may be musshy and odd, but damn it I was not still hungry. At the first table sat Candy Pop, a Unicorn Mare, and a Zebra Stallion, "this is Under Bush, and her husband Zaan, their in charge of labs B," Candy Pop explained," Both of them had stable barding that had extra padding over it, giving them a far more armored look.

"they all say security, but the most we ever do is escort the eggheads back to their family when they forget they have lives outside of work." Under Brush had an upbeat wraps to her voice, that seemed to match her powdered blue coat, and black mane combination, she also sported a scar under her left eye, that extended to the left side of her head.

"We got a few funny story's about that, maybe we can tell you them later." Zaan spoke with no accent, but other then that he was, well a Zebra, a coat of white with black stripes that extended to his mane and tail, though his mane seemed to revers the black and white between the left and right side.

Prancer Dancer got my attention with her vigorous waving at the next table, this one also had three ponies at it. All three of them had some kind of grime on them, and all of them earth ponies stallions. "This is Musket Ball, the old codger is the head, and currently the only pony in the arms development lab. Then we have Easy Fix and Stress Test, their our maintenance engineers here in Labs B."

Musket Ball simply grunted, he had a white main, gray coat and a beard that was at least twelve inches long, overall a grumpy old pony. Easy Fix spoke up, "Don't mind him, he's just not good with meeting new ponies, if you visit him at his shooting range, I bet he will talk your ears off as you shoot guns, and drink whiskey all day," I didn't know much about shooting guns, but talking over some whiskey sounded like a good way to pass the time.

Easy Fix had a black coat, and a blond mane, making the stains on his barding the only clear sign that he needed a shower, "It's one of the good things about being in Labs B, as long as we keep things running, the overmare let's us get drunk," Easy Fix sounded more like Easy living.

Stress Test was much bigger then every pony else, with a violet coat, and rust red mane, he gave off a feeling of pride after Easy Fix had spoken. "This jobs the best, and it's because Stable-Tec dose not cut corners, so all we have to do is double check all the weak points, and if there still going on strong, out job is done for the day." Stress Teast let out a burp, "but don't get us wrong, it still keeps up busy, and labs C and D call us down whenever they fuck up," I gess he didn't want me to think he was lazy, not that I would say it, but the job sounded like a fun easy gig, well for a maintenance engineer, of which I was not.

"And that's every pony that is free right now," Prancer shrugged, "we are busy ponies, just yesterday I had to plan for a birthday, but it turns out it was for twins, had to redo everything in an hour before they arrived, but it was a success in the end."

"The cake burst into flames miss Prancer Dancer," A stuffy unicorn mare trotted through the open door, she had normal stable barding on over her white coat, her silver mane was in a braid, and she had a thin framed glasses that sat on the tip of her nose, "I don't call flaming cake a success."

"The two colts thought is was awesome, they told me so, I call that a success miss Dots and Cross." Prancer stuck out her tong.

"Never mind you, I'm here to see mister Slowtrot," she looked at me and used her magic to place a peace of parchment onto the table next to me, a quill floated over for me to take in my mouth. "I need you to sign this here, it's a release form, with it Stable-Tec will not be held liable for any injuries accorded when involved in Stable-Tec busyness." among things I strongly disliked, one was writing with my mouth, I did my best, but my signature barely looked like my name, "Good, with this I advise that you return to the pipbuck lab, and I sould remind you that this dose not make you an employee of Stable-Tec," Dots and Cross grabed the parchment in her magic, trotting out with the same scenes of urgency as she came in with, I could see that her cutie mark was an 'i' and a 't'.

Prancer gave me a little nudge, "That was out local bureaucrat, It's her job to handle payroll, and all the other non fun stuff. Oh and before I forget," Prancer hoofed a few thing into my saddle bag before I could see what they were, "something for the road, you know if you get hungry or thirsty." in the upper left corner of my vision text appeared, sating I now had two Stable-Tech MRE and two B Lab Sparkle Cola in my saddlebag, the text vanishing after a read it, "now you know which way to the lab right?"

Candy Pop trotted over to the door "I'll take him to the lab," oh no, I knew what she wanted to do, "Come on, I heard they got some fun stuff to do with that pipbuck," Okay, I just needed to mentally prepare myself, can't be much worse then what some of the mares I knew would talk about. I trotted after her, prepared for the worse she could throw at me.

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I was not prepared, I thought she was going to talk about other stallions, and privet stuff about them, but no she went on about the diseases she had to study in college, I didn't know that their was a tick that can give you a virus that makes your skin fall of, now I do, along with its horrible symptoms that come before your skin falls off.

"what actually kills the pony is dehydration, with so much fluids coming out of of every orifice, it's extremely hard to keep a patient hydrated, as well as not contract the plague yourself," The door to the pipbuck tech lab was right in front of me, Candy Pop was still talking, and I didn't want to be rude, but I also didn't want to hear about any more ways to die from horrible diseases.

"Ahem, Candy Pop."

"Are we hear already, and here I was getting to the good stuff."

"you scare me, you know that right?"

"oh don't make me blush, but if you ever want to talk more, you know were to find me."

Candy Pop waved and trotted off, probably to medical, leaving me with the peace of silence. So I stood around for another minute absorbing the quite stillness.

The Pipbuck lab looked the same as it did before I passed out, not that I remember any real details, but I did take note that the robot was gone. June was still at the large computer, with a few more pipbucks plugged into it, an ashtray sat near her filled with cigaret buds and ash. Cloud bank was at a desk, tapping away at another not as big computer. Emerald Fields was among a bunch of disassembled pipbucks, and from what I could guess she had them all connected to together, though what four I didn't know, I'm no pipbuck technician. "uhh, hello, I'm back."

"Good, we have a some work to finish up first, go take a seat in the meantime, don't touch anything maniacal." June didn't even stop working as she spoke to me, nor did the other, which to me meant that I sould just do as they say.

Looking around the lab, it all just seemed to just bluer together for me, all I could understand was that everything here was to deal with pipbucks, and because I knew nothing about pipbucks, I just felt that I did not belong here. The cafeteria was inviting, calling me to eat, drink, and talk to others, but now that I could take actually take my time to take in the pipbuck lab, it was sterile and cold. I sat at a desk that was a bit further away from the others, as I did not want to distract them any further then I might have, the desk itself had some paperwork on it, something that sould be safe for me to at least look at.

One peace of paper was covered in notes, and had another paper attached to it. 'NO MORE MINISTRY PIPBUCKS!' was what the attachment had written on it. The document itself was a wall of text that I had no interest in reading, but it also had a lot of pink notes scribbled all over that caught my curiosity. The top stated that this document was about a M.O.M. Pipbuck, most of the pink notes were too much of a scribble for me, but there were a few notes that were a bit bigger and more clear. 'durable internal hardware,' 'detachable/reachable components,' 'softer casing,' and 'bigger BIGGER memory space!' there was another not near the bottom that was in red, 'suggest the use of the 2900 over the mass produced 3000, it's more easily customizable.' As I was about to put the document down, I saw that there was one more pink note at the bottom right corner, my eyes could not help but be drawn too, "Prancer Dancer holds such good party's! don't you think! you sould go helper her out tomorrow Slowtrot, it be fun!' I just put the document away, slid it under another document, and put a stapler on top of it.

Another batch of documents sat on the left of the desk, this one was about pipbuck attachments prototypes, as it stated on the top, and was a wall of text of which I had no interest in reading. Each document under the top page seemed to be about a different prototype, some stamped approved, others not. The first one was called a Stealth buck, it was approved, and had a purple scribbled note at the bottom, of which I could not read, but it was signed M.A.S. Another document was for a P.R.A or Personal Research Attachment, approved, it had scribble red note on it, signed by June Log Baird. I flipped through the rest, many of them covered in red notes that I could not see, most having no stamp on it. Another approved was a broadcaster attachment, though this one seemed to have a lot less text to it. There were at least three more I saw that were approved, a Disruptor Attachment, a Wireless Connection Attachment, and a Levitation Attachment, all with walls of text with it. I simply put them all back were I found them.

One other document caught my eyes, pipbuck 2500 stated in bold on top, the pipbuck I was told that I won back at the raffle. The document was another wall of text, but attached underneath was a sketch of the pipbuck: the pipbuck had a far different design to it then the 2600, though both sharing that it covered most of the leg. The lower end was little different from a normal pipbuck 3000, not as bulky looking, and the upper leg part was less like an extra pipbuck, and more of a holder for what looked like an retractable antenna, under the sketch was the words 'search and rescue pipbuck' and a red note next to it stated 'further manufacturing canceled.' The bottom left of the page was signed J.L.B.

"FINISHED!" June shouted, the other two researcher groaned as they continued working, "you two are buying the scotch."

Feeling that it was now safe to at least talk with June, I put the document down and trotted over to her, "umm, I signed a release form, so that was a thing. oh and Umm, I got free stuff," oh why am I so awkward at times.

June just looked at me and rolled her eyes "well at least that means that Healing Herbs might actually get some sleep. Now let's get that pipbuck hooked up and ready." She pressed a button on the upper part of the pipbuck, opening the panel from before, "You know we were worried that the it had actually failed when you passed out," with ease, she picked up a cable with her hoof, and attached it into the pipbuck, "Lifebeat was had a few words to say about dragging one of his patents around just after recovery." she plugged in the second cable to my pipbuck, and returned to her computer.

"that's the first thing he had me do when I got up. I don't think I've seen a real zebra in years."

"oh, if not real one, then what have you seen?"

"the normal stuff, ponies in zebra costumes, the ones with the big red eyes and fangs, scaring the fillies and colts."

June let out a sigh, tapping away at the computer, "it's realy got that bad has it. I remembered when the war started, that such depictions of the zebras could get you in trouble with the law, and now it's the normal stuff." the tone in her voice was more somber, but her hooves did not stop tapping away.

"It's actually hard to find a classic movie in the theaters anymore, or a new one that's not about the war in some way," there was even a musical about a zebra friend of the ministry's that turned traitor, the M.O.M. shut it down after the first day it was shown, "sooo... how many zebras are here?"

June stopped tapping, and swiveled her seat to look at me, I was actually taken aback by it, "and why would you want to know?"

"just curious, like I said, haven't seen a real zebra in years, and today I saw two."

"so you met Zaan as well," she paused, closing her eyes for few seconds before opening them again, "I'll let that be a surprise," she turned back to her computer, I just scratched my head, accidentally hitting myself with the pipbuck.

"Done," another groan came Cloud Bank as Emerald Field levitated her cluster of pipbucks over to the computer and plugged them in, "Looks like your paying for three fourths of the scotch Cloud Bank." he taped away at his computer harder.

"Uhh, I'm a but afraid to ask, but what is that?" I pointed at the cluster of gutted pipbucks she was plugging into the large computer.

"A shortcut," she smiled as she levitated another cable to me, and plugged it into my pipbuck, "that V.I. we installed turned out better then we thought it would. It's actually isolating all the harmful spells, and any ones that could damage the pipbucks systems, so we just have to make a place for the spells to be isolated that is not on the pipbuck." she said with a upbeat tone.

"so, dose that mean you can get this thing safe today?" I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I wanted to know.

"no, not today, but tomorrow maybe. were trying to trick the spells to jump onto another pipbuck, and like the old saying goes, you can trick all the ponies some of the time, but you can't trick all the ponies all the the time." she pressed a few buttons on her frankenpony creation, and my vision blurred for a second. "We sould be able to remove the more problematical ones first, the V.I. wont even let the pipbuck fully operate until we get rid of them."

Cloud Bank walked around me, plugging his pipbuck into the computer, he looked a bit annoyed, "The new code is ready, just start the transfer and the V.I. sould take care of the rest."

"Right, just monitor the systems, if you see any hiccups, unplug everything." the sound of the computer suddenly became louder, like some pony had turned on a spark engine.

The screen on my pipbuck lit up, so I brought it up closer to take a look at it. I could see the symbol of the M.O.P. filling the screen, under text flashed by, and a bar slowly moved from the left to the right. As I watched, another bar appeared, also moving across the screen, but when I moved my head it moved with me. this went on for a few minutes, the bars became butterfly's, and fluttered around the room, I was getting concerned that the pipbuck had messed up my brain. Eventuly it all stopped, and my Pipbuck rebooted agen.

"That was weird" I rubbed my eyes before looked at the others, who were staring at me, "what! I saw green butterfly's flying everywhere, is that not normal?"

Cloud Bank and Emerald Field glanced at each other before looked back to me, Cloud Bank shook his head before talking, "This is why we stopped letting the M.A.S. program our pipbucks."

The pipbuck turned back on, and my vision filled with... stuff. I looks at it all, but other then a compass I didn't know what I was looking at. Emerald Field chuckled a little "Looks like the E.F.S. is working, their sould be tutorial in the systems setting, when you have time you sould turn it on." so all this stuff was called a E.F.S. the compass was easy to understand, though the three small blue bars on the compass were odd, moving my head left and right provided me evidence that the three small blue bars were tracking the research team.

June got out of her seat and walked to the desk that Cloud Bank was working at, the blue bar fallowed her. She picked up a mug in her hoof and smiled at me. "Lets test the new spell out," new spell? oh, right, I agreed that I would help them with their, their research I guess. The other two gave a worried look to each other, which then made me worry. "Slowtrot, stay still and keep an eye on the mug." she threw it at me with a under hoof throw, it quickly flew right at my face, to my credit I did exactly what June told me to do, more out of surprise then anything.

Luckily Emerald had grabbed the mug in her green magic, saving me from getting hit in the head with it. Turning to thank her, the mug then smaked her in the head, and fell to the ground. "uhh, what?" Cloud Bank started bellowing in laughter. "what just happened?"

"could you have just had him pick it up with the levitation spell," Emerald Field groaned as she rubbed her head, "or at least threw something softer." she then started to laugh as well, which made me feel that things were okay.

June took another long puff of her cigaret as she walked back up to us. "we put a levitation spell into the pipbuck, nothing strong, but it sould help you with getting things in and out of your new saddlebags. Just be careful, the spell uses your eyes to target whatever you want to pick up, and will move with them, as well drop when you blink." she returned to her computer, and looking back at me, "We got more work to do Slowtrot, so go find Zaan or Under Bush, one of them can take you to residential and show you around." The levitation was a bit much for me to take in, but the part about geting shown around sounded like a good idea, and maybe the cafeteria had a some more food for me, I was still feeling a bit hungry.

An Icon appeared in the upper right of my vision stating 'map updated' before vanishing. Tapping on my pipbuck, the option to start the tutorial opened up, I looked at the others and shrugged, "I'm going to check the tutorial first, I think this thing has a map." the others smiled a little before going back to work, leaving me to learn how to work on my oversize pipbuck.

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Footnote:

Quest Perk: Advanced Pipbuck Modification - The defective 2600 is now working properly, and will not suddenly try to kill Slowtrot when he is using it, he just needs to be careful to where he plug it into. Slowtrot can now use levitation through his pipbuck on a small objects at up to a yard away.

Chapter 4 - The R&D Stable

Author's Notes:

once more, this is more or less a finished rough draft in need of editing, I'll do my best to keep the spelling errors to a minim, but the grammar is were I am weakest. Other then that, I hope you enjoy the story.

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 4 - The R&D Stable

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

― Carl Sagan

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As I went through the tutorial I was surprised to find that the V.I. had left me a audio message, "dear new user, this program is your heath and management assistant V.I. This program will provide higher detail in the state of your heath, and will provide organized management of your inventory. This program can, if approved by the user, be vocally activated, and has a text to speech function for any book to study. Remember that your pipbuck is not a toy, so to follow the instructions of your teachers, and stay in school." I was following it until the teacher part, and I'd ask about it, but the others were busy working.

The V.I. left a three other notes, one was about not being late for class, of which was not a problem for me, the other two were about change in the pipbuck systems. One change was that of the E.F.S. that life-forms detection thingy, it had a red bar for hostile, yellow bar for neutral or non hostile, but also a blue bar for tagged allies, of which can be turned on and off. The second was another change to the E.F.S. that other then the compass, the rest of the E.F.S. will fade out of view when not in use. This I liked, as my vision was not cluttered with stuff, and it was a lot of stuff that would appear. The E.F.S. would show basic information about my inventory and data from the top, and basic information about my heath and surrounding from the bottom, but only when it is needed to be seen.

The rest of the tutorial was as I could expect, showing me the my stats, items, and data. The screen for my heath was both simple to understand, and highly detailed, of which the V.I. recommended that I start a diet. my inventory showed the two MRE's and the cola bottles, the cola's were listed to be nearly half pure caffeine. and in the Data I found the map function, along with the route I sould take to get to the cafeteria. I now understood why ponies liked having thees things on, they were super useful, I even found a note and calendar function on the pipbuck.

__________________________

After following the rout my pipbuck gave me, I found Zaan in the cafeteria, and he agreed to show me around residential when I asked. It only now hit me, on our way to the residential area, that I was now alone with a zebra, so all the stupid stuff from Applewood would now raced through my head. I knew that all they said bout zebras was propaganda, but it was also all that I knew about zebras. It was awkward to say the least, as each time I tried to think of a topic, the propaganda would rush back to the forefront, stuff like eating foals, savage rituals, and black magic, that kind of stupid stuff.

I also knew that I almost believed it all too, that is if it was not for my paranoid buffoon of a father, being a military pony he actually believed that the zebras were evil, but he also believed more that the ministry's were going to come to make him disappear one day. He would always tell me to believe half of what I saw, and nothing what I heard, often when drinking, sometimes when sober. My mom left him not long after I learned to talk, so I only saw him once are twice a month, but it was enough to show me what I did not want to be. One day he up and vanished without a word, I was not surprised, but still annoyed that he never said goodby.

"mister Slowtrot" Zaan was looking at me with some concern to it, "are you okay?"

"Oh... I'm fine, what is it?"

"Well I had asked you about what you were doing before you were brought here, but you didn't respond" he then tapped on the metal doors in front of us, "also, were at the elevator."

"we need to take an elevator?" I asked, feeling a bit stupid after.

"yes Slowtrot, unless you want to take the stairs?" he asked, giving me a mocking look.

"right, sorry, I'm still a bit out of it, I used levitation today, and accidentally hit Emerald with a mug," I was not going to say it was on her head, and that she might have a bump now.

Zaan was a little taken aback, but quickly retained hi composer, "so they got that to work, I always wanted to try my hoof at levitation, Under Brush keeps on teasing me with hers," he chuckled a little, I did too.

"Oh, on the job thing, I had actually lost it recently, so other then the deathtrap pipbuck I have on, this is actually a good opportunity for me." I said a bit sheepishly, hoping he would not pry further, nopony needs to know I suck at keeping a job.

"That's a shame, from what I've been told, work has become harder to find lately."

"That's true, the ministry's found that robots were more efficient at farm labor, they even got contraptions that can harvest and make cider in seconds, all it needs is a unicorn or two to operate it. It's all for the war effort they say, but now the city's are filled up with farm pony's looking for work."

Zaans head hanged a little low "my parents said something like that would happen, they always loved harvest time, hiring all the ponies around to help them harvest the walnuts on our farm, to think it's all been replaced by robots is sad to say the least."

"Your family grows walnuts?" I tried to not sound surprised.

"did, we were moved to zebra town when the war turned for the worst." his voice had lowered a bit, making me feel a bit sad to hear. "but it's not all bad, it's were I met my wife, and not long after we got our job at Stable-Tec, it's actually a funny story."

The doors to the elevator opened up, reveling a large room, it looked like it could hold over ten ponies in it before they got cramped, "that is a big elevator," was all I could say as I stepped in, Zaan followed me, pressing a button as soon as he was in. "how big is this place?" the elevator doors closed, and the began to rise, pushing down a wait onto me.

"well residential is considered a big stable on it's own, and each of the labs are as big as a small stable." I didn't know what big meant in terms of a stable, so I gave him a look. "Residential can hold a population of up to five hundred, and the labs can hold at most one hundred ponies, I think."

"and how many labs are there?"

"there are four labs, under residential, so that would come to around to a population of nine hundred that could live here," Zaan was rubbing his chin with his hoof now, "though labs C is all lab stuff, and never been down to labs D, so around seven hundred would be a closer number."

seven hundred ponies was a big number, but looking at Zaan, the question I asked June came back, as well as the propaganda that infested my head. When the elevator came to a stop, it almost made me forget what I was about to ask. "I have one other question, it's just that you and the doctor are the only zebras I had seen in years, and so I was wondering, how many zebras are here in this stable?" Zaan simply gave me a smile, and walked out of the elevator, I followed.

The hallway we entered from the elevator split into three directions, but Zaan whent strait. The looks of the stable was a lot different, then it was in the labs, the gray gave way to blues, reds, and yellow, making it feel a lot warmer. Zaan was already at the door at the end of the hall, a sign that said atrium handed above it, I didn't know if I was walking slower, he was walking faster, or it was both, so I trotted to catch up to him. "If my count is right there are one hundred and forty three zebras, and a little over two hundred ponies living in residential alone right now," he the grinned as pressed the button to open the door, "just be careful, they can get a bit aggressive, but they mean well."

__________________________

Among the many ways I did not want to die, this one was now at the top, I could not count them all, their were just so many of then, so many foals!

The atrium of the stable was quite large, two floors high, and each side had eight independent rooms. Each of the rooms had different activity's from what I could see, one had an arcade, another was a small theater, overall it looked like a fun place to be. But no matter were I looked fillies and colts were there, earthponys, unicorns, pegasus, and zebras, the few adults here looked a bit overwhelmed, I myself felt doomed.

"Don't worry Slowtrot, just follow me, and they sould leave you alone." he walked through the crowd casually, I followed, as a bunch of foals watched us with their big eyes, just waiting for me to fall behind.

"DADDY!" A filly spoke with a squeak and rushed though the atrium, latching onto Zaans leg, "we got to do hoof panting today, and and I made a panting of the orchard, and and I think I might get a painting cutie mark." The filly was a unicorn, with a pink bow in her powdered blue mane and tail, and her white coat had black stripes. "we we even made our own cutie marks!" Her flank was a mess of small multi color hoof marks, and her hooves even more of a mess.

Zaan gave his filly a hug, "oh Hydrangea, I'll get the bath ready for you when your done playing." Hydrangea had the biggest smile on her face.

"well who ever painted painted the stripes is probably going to get a painting cutie mark," and now I felt like I just said something stupid as Zaan raised an eyebrow at me.

"naw silly, we we painted Bean Sprout and Tall Grass in stripes!" Hydrangea pointed with her hoof at two earth pony colts that were covered in paint from head two hoof, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Zaan had face hoofed, "Sweat Grass is going to have a fit," he then looked back at me, "Hydrangea a zony, the stripes are natural." now I understood why I was feeling like an idiot.

"hay! hay! mister! mister! what's with the pipbuck, it's huge!" a Pegasus colt was poking at my pipbuck, he was also splattered with paint, "dose it give you super powers, I bet it gives you super powers!"

"ah no, it just..."

"are you a power pony!" this time is was a zebra filly, she was also splattered in paint.

"uhh Zaan, I can use some help," he just chuckled and put Hydrangea on his back, trotting through the growing crowd of foals, "don't leave me like this, I don't like crowds, and this is a crowd of foals, foals!" he was out of reach, the foals seemed to move around him like water, blocking my path out of here.

"I bet he turns into the iron pony!" oh no, one was on my back! "where's the rest of your armor Iron pony, is it in your cool saddlebags?"

"I umm, I" I didn't know what to do, I have never been surround by fouls before, if I had not mentioned it before, I was actually a bit scared.

"Iron pony do something cool! do it!"

"Soot lazers from your eyes!"

"No he sould fly with his jet hooves, you got jet hooves right!"

looking at them all, and their were a lot of them, if I didn't do anything I they would eat me alive, well probably not, but the idea of a ton of upset foals sounded like a realy bad time. "uhh, oh if you give me a book, I can have my pipbuck read it to you"

A colt blew a raspberry at me. "something cooler!"

I thought for a moment, and remembered the levitation spell. "how about this, Pipbuck, hoof me a soda!" nothing happened, "hoof me a soda pipbuck!" I taped on the pipbuck, and a message popped up about approving the voice activations, I face hoofed. tapping to the data screen, I found the options in the setting, though I was careful to not to mess with any other part in the settings.

"pleas state what you want the activation code word to be." the pipbuck spoke in its very non pony voice.

"oh it talks! can it do other thing?" one filly bounced as he spoke.

"it wants a code word, a code word," a colt piped.

A code word, all the foals were realy making it hard for me to think, and I was trying to think of a word I normally would not use.

"How about Iron pony, that's a good code word" another colt spoke louder then he needed to.

"no that's stupid, Mare-Do-Well, that's a cooler name" a filly squeaked

each time one of the foals spoke up, I lost my train of thought, two more suggested batmare as a name, three are still insisting Iron pony, a bunch more were taking turns at poking the pipbuck. The only thing that was going through my head was how I did not like crowds, and if I could get away from all these foal, it would not be too soon.

"HAY LETS VOTE ON IT!" an older colt spoke up, he was a unicorn with a dark blue coat, and silver main and tail, had some paint splatters over him. Most of the foals around me stopped and listen to him. "ALL IN FAVOR OF IRON PONY RAISE YOUR HOOF," a bunch did, but not a hole lot. "HOW ABOUT MARE-DO-WELL" a hole lot more put their hoof up, I'd hate to call the pipbuck that.

the foal on my back put their front hooves on my head and yelled " IRONBUCK... because it's a pipbuck." that last part was little more then a squeak. I could see all the other foal look at each other, and then a wave of hooves shot up in the air.

I had to admit that Ironbuck was not a bad choices, looking back at my pipbuck, and tapping on the voice activation option, I saw that the foals were looking on in anticipation, "Ironbuck."

"Activation codeword accepted" the foals let out a breath that they seemed to not know they were holding.

"ok, let's try this again, Ironbuck" an icon appeared in my vision next to the compass, it looked like a radio mic, "hoof me a soda" a B Lab soda floated in front of me from my saddlebag, landing in my hooves. Twisting off the cap, I gulped down the glowing soda, having forgot how trusty I was until I put the bottle to my lips.

"that's it, I can do that" a Unicorn filly squeaked as she lifted a peace of garbage off the ground with her magic, it fell after two seconds of her struggling with the spell.

"but he's an earth pony, earth pony's cant do that!" a zebra filly retorted.

A bunch of foals were back to poking my pipbuck again, and I felt another foal jump onto my back. Not wanting litter, and be a bad example, I walking over to a trash can, twisting the cap back on the empty bottle, and place it in the trash. Despite them just being all over the place, they moved out of my way quickly, I just had to move a little slower, though they were intent on poking the pipbuck, any arguing with each other on getting to ride my back, not that I agreed to let any of them on in the first place.

That's when I saw Prancer Dancer, she was splattered in paint, and had a small colt sleeping on her back. "PRANCER PRANCER, OVER HERE!" waving my right hoof the best I could, without having the foals fall of, to get her attention

Prancer Dancer elegantly moved through the crowed of foals, trotting right up to me. "I see your having fun," she gave me a smile, "their such balls of joy aren't they."

one plopped their head onto of mine, "their cuter when not outnumbering me a hundred to one."

"Oh don't be that way, their harmless, it's just that their exited to see someone new." Prancer turned around "come now my little ponies, give the nice stallion some room, he he has somewhere he needs to go," a bunch of then groaned and moved out of the way, "Follow me."

we walked to the other end of the atrium, the two fouls on my back had jumped off half way, and Prancer gently hoofed off the sleeping colt to what I guessed was his teacher. We had a small group of fillies and colts follow use to the door, but then ran off to play with their friends elsewhere. The hole place was a bit too chaotic for me, but I would like to return when there were far less fouls around.

__________________________

In the hallway, I was greeted by Zaan once more, Hydrangea was not with him, so I guessed she was still in the atrium. Prancer Dancer was brushing some of the dried paint off of herself, whatever that paint was, it looked easy to clean off.

"well that was a lot of foals," I blurted out, they both just gave me a look, that 'ya, we know' look, "my sister was the one good with foals, me, well just get nervous that I'd do something wrong."

Prancer sighed, "you're fine Slowtrot, like I said, they were just a bit exited to see a new face here. they don't get to see too many new adults anymore." She quickly put a hoof to her mouth.

"wait what, why would they be exited to see an adult, were boring?" I was knew I sould jut drop it, but I also just waled through more foals then I ever wanted to in my life. Prancer looked to Zaan, and he nodded back to at her.

"Well the R&D stable is made to hold the both the researchers and their family," Prancer rotated her hoof as she spoke "But the president of Stable-Tec; miss Applebloom, thought it be an excellent idea to turn the R&D stable into a much bigger stable three." she said with a matter-o-fact tone to her voice at the end.

"and stable three is what?"

Zaan cleared his throat "it's the let get along stable. From what I've heard, it was sealed up not long after its construction was finished, and houses both pony and zebra inside. Basically a stable made to get the both sides to work and live together, with they do that with our leaders, and the zebra leaders."

"The problem is that by the time Applebloom applied that idea, a lot of the zebras didn't even trust Stable-Tec anymore. But there so happened to be plenty of orphans all over Zebra town, so she decide to turn this places into an orphanage. She hired a bunch of early M.o.M. and M.o.P. ponies to help look after the foals, and a year later the R&D stable is about half full with fillies and colt." Prancer shrugged, "all the smartypants my not enjoy it, but it's my dream job."

"working at an orphanage?" I stupidly retorted.

Prancers face scrunched up for a second before relaxing, "looking after the young, and making them smile, you know the fun stuff," she stuck out her tong at me before smiling.

"so what your telling me, is that all the foals I just trotted passed, are all orphans?"

Zaan sighed, "not all, I am Hydrangea father." right, they did say that there were family's here as well. "I think it's time for me to show you to your room," Zaan said with calm tone, "I have to get a bath ready for my Hydrangea." he shot Prancer a glance before walking off down the hallway.

Prancer scratched her head with her hoof, "ya, it was a bad idea to leave all that candy and water color lying around, and I know I'll be made to clean it all up later, but at least their having fun."

I don't know why, but I suddenly remembered that pink note I saw early, "If you want, I could help you out, it might be fun." like cleaning was ever fun, but she did get me the barding and saddlebags, so why not.

She gave me another smile, "thanks, I'd like that." with that, she turned back to the door to the atrium and opened it, the sound of fillies and colts at play filled my ears once more. "WHO WANTS ME TO PAINT YOU A CUTIE MARK!" and she was off, back into the hoard of young ponies.

I trotted off to catch up to Zaan, the short interaction with the foals left me feeling drained, yet far from annoyed, it was more of a feeling of content. A message appeared in the upper right of my vision, stating that I had started the quest 'cleanup's fun' and looking at my pipbuk, had a map rout back to the atrium

__________________________

The room was the normal gray that was in the labs, though at least the bed sheets were blue, and the room was bigger then were I was living just a few days ago, It even had a Stable-Tec computer I could use. Overall, this was a major step up for me, though I was in an underground bomb shelter, it has actually been a real good time. I put up a tally in my head for all the good that was going on: getting paid, free stuff, free room for my stay, overall friendly ponies, oh and I got a bunch of free food.

Putting my new saddlebag down, and removing my new stable barding, I was a bit annoyed to find out that the back of the barding was covered in small colored hoof marks, which also meant that my back that the barding didn't cover had some as well. I wasn't that bothered by it, I was going to get more on me when I go help Prancer out, so I could hold of on the bath for today.

Quickly sniffing myself, just to you know check, and I came to the conclusion that it may be a good idea to wash up sooner then later.

Their was on thing I wanted to check out before I did wash up, the Stable-Tec computer just hooked my curiosity. Tapping on the power button, the screen lit up with a green glow, which begged the question to why Stable-Tech have most of their stuff glow green. Text appeared on the screen, 'connect pipbuck to unlock terminal' oh there called a terminal, not a computer, I'll have to remember that. Lucky for me, next to the terminal, were some cables that looked like the ones from the Pipbuck lab. So I hoofed them up, and with help from the levitation spell, I plugged them into the terminal and my pipbuck, unlocking the terminal.

The terminal itself had very little on it for me to mess with, there was three messages from the Overmare in the inbox, a send message function that I needed the contacts for others to even use, unless I wanted to send a message to the overmare, and a log book for personal use. if there were other functions, they were locked, which disappointing to me, I was at least hoping there was a game on this. So I had the messages transferred onto my pipbuck, and shut down the terminal, seeing that their was little else to do with the thing.

The upper right of my vision told me that I now had three Overmare messages in my pipbuck.

My left fore leg suddenly felt numb, and looking down at the pipbuck the screen was flickering. Quickly I pulled out the cables, feeling completely stupid for what I had just done. I was too worried to even mess with the setting, but I plugged it right into a terminal, and now I was probably going to die, or live long enough to get yelled at for stupidity. The numbness moved across my body, it was an odd sensation, but I did my best to move to the door, it was jut that my limbs were not working as well as they should. The E.F.S. flickered in my vision as a mess of text filled my vision, scrolling too fast for me to read anything, then vanishing. Larger text then scrolled into my view, much slower then before.

Error... data damage... data corrupted... data found... Welcome to the O.I.A. agent. Project Entombed has been activated. Target of limitation; Applebloom. Sleeper mode activated, extracting all project memory's.

__________________________

Footnote:

quest active: cleanup's fun

quest active: ********

Chapter 5 - All Fun and Games

Author's Notes:

Thanks once again to everyone reading this, this is just as much for all of you as it is for myself, I never thought I would enjoy writing anything, but here it is.

Like with the others, this is still a rough chapter, and I will post here on my blog when it has been edited.

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 5 - All Fun and Games

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.”

― Clive James

__________________________

The halls of the Stable echoed at every step, the lights dim, making it hard to see. Looking around for what I could guess was some time, I found the atrium, the door seeming bigger then I remembered, the button too high for me to reach, but no matter as I found a broom to hit the button, and the door opened. The atrium itself was impossibly large, bigger then I remember, but also duller, lacking the color.

"over here!" I filly called to me, she was with a few other foals, some colts, other fillies, "let's go play."

Rushing over to join them, I was curious to play what, but I bet it was going to be fun.

"were going to paint the sky" the filly pointed her hoof up, and I saw color on top of color, the sky was bright, and filled with foals who flew around without wings. "Lets go!"

"How do we get there," seriously now, they were flying, and only a few were pegasi.

"Happy thoughts!" the filly giggled, and then jumped up into the air, floating up as she kicked her legs.

The other foals fallowed soon after, all of them floating off into the bright sky, joining with all the others up there. I also jumped, but only met the ground, and tried again to only have the same result, after the third attempt and failing, I gave up, slapping my hoof on the cold ground in irritation. "It's not like I wanted to fly, I'm just fine right here."

"then why did you not fly in the first place," the voice of a mare echoed in the room, soft and regal, "but no matter, lets see what secret you hold in that hoof of yours shall we."

I quickly looked around to locate finding the mare standing behind me. She was solid black: coat, mane and tale, but her eyes were the color of gold. She had on lab barding, it's blue, yellow, and white giving her form in the darkness she sat in. "who are you?" the atrium had vanished, replaced by a smaller room, the gray still here, but not the same as a stable, too decorated, and a bit blurry. "What's going on?" The mare walked out of view, revealing an older pony behind a desk, but every about the pony was muted, smudged, and blurred.

"what's going is that you are getting a promotion soldier." it was the voice of an older mare, but her tone sounded off, like an interment out of tune. "you have been chosen to take part in a special operation, it's utmost discretion is necessary."

My hoof immediately saluted, "yes mam, no witnesses mam," My voice was that of a mare, its tone sounding strong and stoic.

I could see a smiled through the smudged pony's face, as she pulled out metal briefcase from behind a desk, opening it to reveal three stethbucks inside. "we got a few new tools for you to use," she pushed the caseto me, "it sould help you deliver your message."

Looking at the pipbuck on my leg, and examining stethbucks, I held back a grin. "this sound like a normal mission, so what's the promotion... mam?"

"this mission will be what gives you the promotion, we need to ponies who are truly loyal to Luna to be in charge." A glass of wild pegasus flouted up, the smudge pony taking a sip before continuing. "But sometimes the old guard will stand in the way of this, so were going to have you ask nicely for them to step down."

"Some of them do seem tired, over twenty years of service must take it's tole, I'll see to it that retirement is considered, mam."

The smudge pony took another sip of wild pegasus before putting the glass down. "as long as you use the utmost discretion, otherwise we will have to find some pony better to fill the position. Now go, the mission details are on the pipbuck, and remember that the O.I.A. respects loyalty among all else, do not disappoint us."

I closed the briefcase and bit onto the handle before turning to walk out the room. Outside, two unicorns were there waiting for me, my lieutenant's, one taking the briefcase from my mouth. Looking back at the room I came out of, the door had closed as soon as I stepped out, but giving me a good view of my reflection in the glass that had it's blinds closed from the inside. My reflection was that of earthpony mare, I had a faded blue coat that looked almost gray, and platinum blond main that handed down to my neck, cut in a strait diagonal, longer in the front. my eyes, her eyes were link emeralds, cold, hard, and with a hunger. "Admiral Thorn Roseland, It has a nice ring to it."

Everything started to melt away, dispersing into darkness until I was consumed by it. Once more the black mare stood before me, other then her golden eyes and lab coat barding, she blended into the darkness like it was part of her. "Another one of thees, and so far from Luna's protection." She walked passed me, her hooves never making a sound. "such simple action, and yet for them to be know, an empire can crumble in but a fortnight." Turning to look at her again, she was gone, but what I saw was that I was in a massive room: sparks of lighting raced along the walls from metal poles, and a rainbow like fluid in large pods. At the center was a platform, though empty, I could feel it pull at me, as though it had it's own gravity to it.

"A secret for a secret is the deal, not that you will remember what you see." her voice echoed still, but only in my head, like there was nothing in-between my ears. "it is best that a few secrets are best left forgotten by simple minds, like a vague dream never understood."

__________________________

Normally the worst part about waking up is the waking up part, being in a comfy bed, under warm sheets, and a pillow to cradle my head. The fact that I was on the cold floor left me confused, and considerably uncomfortably.

Getting up, I racked through my brain to why I was not in the bed, but I could remember nothing after entering the room. "Ironbuck, how long was I out?"

"Seven hours and twenty three minutes. The time is currently 3:35 am."

I scratched my head,wondering how much sleep I was going to end up doing here. "Ironbuck, did I do anything before I fell asleep?"

"you downloaded three messages from the terminal. Would you like to read them, or activate the text to talk?"

Terminal, I looked at the computer, so it was called a terminal, I'll remember that. "uh.. the text to talk, use that." the pipbuck did not respond, "right.. Ironbuck activate the text to talk, and play the messages."

"Playing message one: Acting Overmare Healing Herbs to Stabl-Tec employees - change in stable population. As per ordered by the Stable-Tec President Applebloom, the R&D stable will be now be sheltering a small population of Equestrian refugees, many of them will be zebras from Zebra Town. For all those concerned about security, Stable-Tec will have done an extensive background check on each new resident, if we let them in, that means they have no connections to the war, direct or indirect. Remember here at Stable-Tec, we seek to outlive the war, not continue it."

Taking a look at my pipbuck, I saw that the message was a little over a year old.

Feeling hungry I pulling out one of the MRE's from my bag, The MRE itself felt like a solid block inside it sealed packaging, and on the side it listed it as a seaweed brick. Opening the package, I could see that it was a solid green brick, though not as hard as a rock, it held its form firmly.

"Playing message two: Acting Overmare Healing Herbs to R&D Stable Residents - further change in stable population. Once more, Appleboom, our Stable-Tec president, has changed the population that will be let into the stable. The refugees that will be let in soon are going to be all foals, along with a staff to look after them, the exact number of new residents that will be joining us is currently under review. If you have any complaints, send them to me in a letter, and I will realy them to Applebloom."

This message was a little under a month after the first.

The brick offered some resistance as I took a bite out of it. It was a bit chewy, a little salty, but overall tasted good. The rest of the brick vanished after a few more bites.

"Playing message three: Stable-Tec President Applebloom to R&D Stable - Thank you for your patients. I know that over this passed year I have pushed for changes to the R&D Stable, and I am glad that you have shown your utmost patients with it all. At the end of the month I will be taking my position of Overmare of the R&D stable, and leaving Vice President Scootaloo in charge of further management of the company. Under my direct supervision as Overmare, we will see to the further success of Stable-Tec, and the survival of all those within a stable."

The message was listed as a little over a week old. Look at the rest of the data options, I saw that I had a quest open, 'cleanup's fun' it was called, remanding me that I said I would help Prancer Dancer clean the atrium.

Putting my new barding back on, and just in case I might need it, I also put on my saddlebag. "Let's see the damage." at this time all the foals sould be asleep, so it was also a good time to see the atrium in peace. Opening the door, I looked back into the room, I could not help but feel that I was forgetting something again, but not even a hint in my head would come up. What ever it was, it come up later, things I forget always do.

"A secret for a secret is the deal" the words left my mouth as I left the room behind me.

__________________________

Heading to the atrium I remembered what I had forgotten, drinking things that glow will make your piss glow, it was an odd sight that made me a bit worried. Unlike in the restroom, the lights in the hallway all dim, though I could still see clearly, it did well to make me feel like it was night, and I sould still be asleep. Each hoof step I took echoed down the hall, giving me a seance of deja vu, but the quiet stillness was also calming for me, all it needed was a slight chill in the air to fill my lungs.

Looking at the atrium door, it felt smaller for some strange reason, and slowly I pressed the button to open the door. Light assaulted my eyes, and music assaulted my ears, as I stood stunned by the sudden change in atmosphere. In the atrium was Prancer Dancer, dancing with a broom in her hooves, herself still covered in paint. Not far from Prancer was Candy Pop, she was sitting on a stool, with a bottle of cola in her magic. The loud music itself was one that was popular over ten years ago, not that I could remember the name of the artist.

Closing the door behind me, I trotted to the two mares, both looking like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. "hard at work I see," I spoke up, trying to be clever, "care if I join you two?"

"Oh! the... the stallion of the hour is here, heh, you sould drink up!" Candy Pop's voice slurred a little as she floated a bottle of cola to me, the soda itself was clear, but before it got close to me I could smell the alcohol from it. "It's Musket Balls moonshine, just don't tell the overmare... or Musket Ball."

"Candy Pop, I love you like a sister, maybe even a lover, but you are a rapscallion and bad example for the foals." Prancer Dancer spoke with upbeat tune, another soda bottle of moonshine rested near her.

Looking at the bottle I was just given, I could only think of two thing: one was that drinking so soon after getting up is what an alcoholic pony would do, and two was that I have not had a dink of booze in days. I lifted the bottle to my lips, and took a swig of the moonshine, the stuff felt like fire on it's way down. "Shit! this is strong stuff." I placed the bottle on top of a trashcan before shacking the feeling off.

The two mares both started to laughing, Prancer falling over as Candy Pop pat me on the shoulder, "Drink up, Prancer said you might show up. We got the maintenance hatch opened up, you can get a rag and bucket there." I could see a small open door that had a drain at it's bottom, and held a bunch of cleaning supplies.

Looking around, their was a lot to clean up, with the room near the two in a clean state, but the floors of it were still a mess "don't you have robots to do mist of this?"

Prancer got up, pushing the broom to the side. "the robots are good for scrubbing the floors, and dusting the shelves. Were just cleaning up the places the bots can't go, Places that takes a ponies touch." she rotated her hoof as she talked, clearly not a fan of this work. "but I'm glad your here, it's going to make work go so much faster."

This then begged the question, "So what did Candy do, or is also just helping out?"

Candy Pop rolled her eyes at the question, but Prancer chimed in. "She got caught handing out the B Lab soda to the ponies at Labs A, The overmare confiscated all the bottles, and sent her here to help me."

"she didn't find the moonshine, thank the goddesses for that." Candy Pop said with a slight giggle, as she took a swig of the drink.

"too the mooonshine!" Prancer also taking a swig from her bottle.

I used the levitation magic to grab the bottle, and bring it to my hooves, "bottoms up," taking another swig, the stuff still burnt on it's way down, if I had to guess, the stuff was more then half alcohol.

Grabbing a rag and bucket, I joined then in cleaning up the atrium, it was almost amazing how much the paint had gotten everywhere. Looking around, their was even a long trail of small hoof prints inside one room that went up the wall, and across the ceiling. Lucky four us, that was just one room, the rest were the normal mess.

The room that Prancer Dancer, and Candy Pop had already worked on was the lounge. It's was a big comfy looking room, with some tables, and a lot of places to sit down. In the room was a few more bottle of the moonshine, and a saddlebag discarded on a couch, on it was a red cross with a lollypop on it.

The first room I worked on with the others was the arcade, with different arcade machines lined up along the walls. From my count, there were fifteen of the arcade machines, most were games I have had played before, but a few were new to me. I stopped at one, it's tittle was 'Don't Mine at Night' the art on the machine was that of a colt holding a sword, and a filly holding a pic axe. Another one was had the tittle 'Fighting is magic' the art for it was spectacular, with six mares displayed all over the machine. It was surprising that I had never seen them before, as they looked like the kind of games I would buy.

The arcade room proved to be a big chore to clean, as any reasonable pony would expect, nearly all the foals had been in here, and had touched everything. Luckily the paint wiped off easily, made for foals Prancer told me, so other then being easy to clean up, the foals could eat it and only get a stomach ache. Candy Pop had the easiest time at cleaning, using her cheating magic quickly wipe off buttons. Prancer also had an easy time, not that she did any different then what I was doing, but she was faster at this then I was.

The next room was another game room, two pool table sat in the middle, but not much more. The girls had me take care of this room on my own, as they went to take care of the theater room.

"Hay Slowtrot, What do you call a police pony with no leggs?" Prancer yelled out from the next room.

"I don't know... not in the mood to work I guess." I yelled back

"A baton!" Prancer answered, I could also hear Candy Pop giggle.

The game room was an easy clean, the foals may have been here, but seeing as it was made for older ponies, they seemed to not have spent as much time here.

The next room was a two rooms long, and had a dance floor, along with a DJ set up, which meant it was another easy clean. Candy Pop decided to play DJ, and Prancer showed off her dancing moves. When they convinced me to join, and do a dance off, I met the challenge, but no amount of moonshine could hide that I didn't know how to dance, and I ended up jut falling on my face, ending the dance off before it even started.

The last two rooms were more game rooms, classic stuff too, with table tennis, foosball being the main attractions of the rooms. Now quite drunk, Candy Pop claimed herself the next princesses of equestria, standing on the foosball table when she did, and granting Prancer Dancer the lord of the flop, Prancer responded by flopping on the ground.

We headed to the second floor, and unlike the floor below, the rooms took up two spaces like the dance floor did, each one was a spots room, with little to clean other then the walls. At this point the work went fast, and with Prancer Dancer singing, the time went by fast. Candy Pop joined in, but she sluerd much of the time, and when they tried to get me to join too, mostly chose to hum the words.

When it was all over, it was a nice moment, until Candy Pop puked in her bucket, then it became a funny moment.

"so Mister Slowtrot, what did you do outside, before the hole pipbuck problem," Prancer asked me as she rubbed Candy's back.

I sighed, "Nothing realy, nothing at all." I placed my hooves on the railing, and looked down. The robots had already moved in, and were cleaning the floors.

"Oh come now, you got to have been doing something" her voice was calm, more inviting then prying.

"Nope, I worked jobs I was no good at, spent the bits on rent, food, and drinks, and whet to sleep hoping that the war would be over when I got up." sometimes I hated how the drink made me more chatty, but the drunk times were when I could easily talk to some pony, or let them talk to me.

"Nothing new, I've see a lot of ponies like that over the years. More as the years went on." She walked up besides me, putting her hooves on the rails as well. "But things will get better, from what I've been told, your a real lucky pony. To even be alive ofter what that thing did, I wouldn't be surprised if Stable-Tec gives you a ton of bits just to forget the hole thing happened."

"that would make life a little easier, maybe find a nice place far from equestria, you know, until the war is over."

Prancer gave a gasp, then sighed "that's probably the smartest thing to do right now." she tapped her hooves on the railing. "I'm sure some pony has told you this ready, but I use to be Part of the Ministry Of Moral, early on when the ministry's were first formed. Our job was to keep the sprites of the ponies up in the dark times, help them get through all the fear and anger. My teacher was not happy that I'd joined up with the M.O.M. saying that laughter can't be issued by the government. That day the grate Ponyacci left equestria, off to lands not poisoned by war, and I was to proud to go with him, and too ashamed to go and find were he dispersed too." Looking over at her, she was crying a little, looking into the small bottle of moonshine.

"The M.O.M. did do good work, but along the way this just, just weren't the same anymore, instead of making pony's happy, we were forcing them to pretend that they were happy. I had enough when I held a pinky party, and even I had to pretend to enjoy myself." she rotated her hoof again. "I would always tell myself that a party pony was no party pony if they hated the party, and there I was, being a party pony who hated the party I was running."

"too much pink I say," Candy Pop joined us, looking a lot better after emptying her stomach, "you cant just paint everything pink and call it a day, it hurts the eyes."

Prancer laughed, "you know that is so true, and never go into the little fillies isle in a super store, the mountain of pink is overwhelming."

I even joined them in the laughter.

Prancer nudged me, "but no matter, I now get to put a smile of all the foals faces, real smiles, I've even seen the stiffs down in the lab crack a smile now and then. so what were we talking about before?"

"I think it was.." nothing came to me, between the moonshine and Prancers sudden story, I had forgotten. "something, I'll remember it later."

We shared another laugh, and enjoyed a bit more of our dink, except for Candy Pop who had enough for the night.

Looking back down, two ponies had walked in, both keeping to the spots that the robots had already cleaned. One was the mare from the diner, the one who had me sign the forms, the other was an older unicorn stallion, with a dark blue coat, a light blue main, and security barding on.

Prancer nudged me again with her hoof. "looks like Dot an Cross is on a date with the security chief again, his name is Brass Badge by the way."

almost like on cue, Dot an Cross looked up at us with an irritated looking glare, "it's good to see that you were able to get some real work done, even if it is your own mess."

"Now Dot's, we can't just stop and tell off every pony we see, were on a tight schedule." Brass Badge spoke with a tired tone before looking at us. "Speaking of which, seeing as your done here, can you go to the overmares office, Healing Herbs sould be there, let her know that we will be back tomorrow."

Dot en Cross gave Brass Badge a stern look. "Seriously Brass, your sending the clown, the gossip, and a pony that dose not even work here to the overmares office. Are you trying to give Healing Herbs a heart attack."

"I'd have asked the others to do it, but every pony up at this hour is busy with work, other then them three, and it's just a message." He retorted.

"fine, but I better not find out that they did anything stupid in her office." Dot an Cross stomped a hoof before waling it the door.

When Brass Badge looked back up at us, we gave him a collective nod, and watched them leave the atrium.

"I bet their going to knock horns at the resort," Candy Pop blurted out as soon as the door closed, "that's what most ponies do when they get time out of the stable."

"They realy sould just announce it, and tie the knot, it's been a long time since I planed a wedding." Prancer sighed after she spoke.

Candy Pop had the biggest grin on her face, looking over me, and at prancer. "It's only a matter of time, she is pregnant."

Prancer gasped, "Fucking no way!"

Candy nodded "Doc Lifebeat confirmed it yesterday, grumpy Dot's was all speechless about it."

"you don't think shes going to tell him about it topside do you?" Prancer had a big smile on her face as well.

At this point I was getting unconformable with the conversation being had, with me in the middle. "excuse me, but you said something about a resort?"

The two looked at me, almost as though that they just remembered that I was here. Prancer Dancer was the one who spoke up, "so no pony told you, well then your in for a treat,"

she patted me on the shoulder, "The R&D Stable is on non other then the Marewaii Islands, the second island to be exact. Plenty of sun, warm sands, and places in which to enjoy yourself at."

I faced hoofed, "My first time to Marewaii, and it's stuck underground."

Candy Pop then patted my shoulder from the other side. "this stable is built under Stable-Tec's own resort, when your done with the testing, I'm sure they will let you stay there for a few day." Looking at Candy Pop, she was a bit too close, her eyes locked with mine. "There's something I want to ask you Slowtrot." I nodded, feeling a bit dumbstruck by her sudden closeness. "Can you go to the overmares office and deliver the message for us," Candy Pop backed off a little, "were a bit on her short list right now, there would be a lot of glaring, an ranting if we were to bother her."

Prancer burst out laughing as Candy pushed herself off the rails, and back to all fours. "oh and wile your there, can you pick up the bottles of B lab soda that she confiscated, I'll have a surprise for you if you do." She gave me a wink.

Sighing, I got back on all four hooves, "no problem, but no promises on the soda." an Icon in my upper right of my vision appeared, stating a rout had been set, and a new quest had been started. Finishing off the moonshine, I placed the empty bottle in a nearby trash can, and walked off to one of the atrium's side doors, it opening with a soft hiss when I hit the button.

"It's not just Dot's who is pregnant, well it's not confirmed, but..." the closing of the door cut off the rest of Candy Pops conversation, leaving me in back in the still quietness.

__________________________

The door to the overmares office looked no different from all the other doors in the stable, but like with going to the principals office, It filled me with a bit of dread by just looking at it, even if I had done nothing wrong.

Knocking on the door a few times proved no response, though I was entirely unsure that she sould hear me unless I bucked the door. Pressing the button to open the door also provided no response, other then giving me a short buzz, which I could only guess meant that I needed a key. I was at a bit of a loss to what I sould do next, other then wait for her to open the door herself. Though now thinking about it, I would be a good idea to wait until I was more sober, it be a few hours before the moonshine had run it's cores through me.

"may I," quickly turning my head to the side in surprise, I saw an all black earthpony mare with golden eyes and lab barding, "shes been locking the door more often lately, like she is hiding herself away." she pushed her hoof onto the button, and the door softly hissed open.

The inside of the overmares office was dim like the hallway, except for a lamp on her desk, which shined onto Healing Herbs, who was asleep in her chair.

"Thanks, I just need to..." the mare next to me was gone, nether in the office or down the hall, she was simply gone, as though she was never here at all. The hair along my spine raised up, as in protest to the fact I knew she was here, but now just gone. "right, no ghosts here, not at all" I whisperer to myself.

Inside the overmares office I could the bottles of B Lab Soda that Candy Pop had asked fore. There were also plenty of boxes scattered around, and a ton of paperwork on her desk. Overall I could see that it was not the kind of job I would want, not unless I was being paid a ton of bits to do it. The room had one window, and in taking a peek I could see that it looked down into the atrium, Candy and Prancer were still down there, putting away all the buckets and rages we had used.

Seeing that the overmare was fast asleep, and that the alcohol in my system made me feel a bit braver, this was an opportune time to grab the B Lab Soda for Candy Pop, before I woke up Healing Herbs. The levitation magic helped a lot to when trying to quietly put the stuff into my saddlebags, and I was presently surprised when I was able to fit ten in each bag without a problem, they didn't even make much noise inside it, or even puff out the bags all that much, it must have been some sort of magic to it. Twenty bottles was about all there was of the glowing stuff, though there were other Sparkle-Cola bottles as well: one batch was green, it was labeled as A Lab Soda, another one had a blue color to it, labeled as C Lab Soda. Seeing as though I had already taken a few, I decided that taking a few more would not hurt. A frowny face appeared in the upper right of my vision, making me feel a bit bad about taking the other bottles.

Before pulling back, and waking up the overmare, the self behind the boxes of soda caught my eyes. On the shelf was a bunch photos in decorative frames, each of them having the same two ponies in it: Healing Herbs, and a shy looking pegusi, she looked like the mare of the Ministry of Peace. Most of them showed the two together with nurses caps on, they were ether among patents, other nurses, or by themselves, all with big grins on their faces. Second to the last photo was a little different, as the two were in lab coats now, and surrounded by unicorns who were also in lab coats, the happy feeling on their faces seemed to be not as big as before. The last photo seemed to be bursting with joy, it was a group photo, and other then Healing herbs, and what I guessed was the six ministry mares, the few other mares in the photo were unknown to me, above them was a big colorful banner saying 'Baby Shower' on it.

Mumbling from Healing Herbs snapped back into my mined what I was hear for. Walking up to her desk I knocked softly on to it's metal surface, hoping not to startle her awake. She slowly opened her golden eyes to look at me, before pulling herself up in her seat, "If this is about another setback, just find a work around, I'll take care of the paperwork," she said with a bit of a yawn.

"Sorry but I'm here to let you know that Dot.. Dot an Cross, and Brass Bridge, no wait, Brass Badge. They will be back tomorrow, I mean they asked me to tell you that." I was realy hoping I was not making myself sound like an idiot.

Healing herbs rubbed her face with her hooves, and and looked at me with her pale green eyes. "oh, your the one with the pipbuck we need, why are they having you run errands, you sould be down in Labs B, getting that thing removed." She sighed before tapping on her terminal. "Messaged received, so get back down to the pipbuck lab, were one a tight scheduled right now." Waving me off, she accidental tipped over am empty bottle of B Lab Soda.

With nothing more to do here, and not wanting to irritate the mare, I stepped out of the office and pressed the button to close the door. As the door closed I thought I could hear Healing Herbs wispier over the doors soft hiss, "A secret for a secret..." giving me an odd feeling of deja vu again.

__________________________

Footnote:

Quest complete: cleanup's fun.

Chapter 6 - Burial at Sea, part one

Fallout Equstria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 6 - Burial at Sea, part one

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.”

― Douglas Adams

__________________________

Pipbucks are stupidly useful, auto-mapping and and rout planing meant that I would not get lost in this maze of a stable, and it gave me the names of areas I have been to. It was a nice trade off for how sore my left leg was getting for having it on, I had not felt it before, but I also had not don any actual work from the time I first woke up. The thing was like a big peace of armor on my leg, probably able to keep any pony from braking my leg, but it was a bit heavy. sooner I could replace it with one of the pipbucks every pony else had, the better.

The walk to the elevator took me around the atrium, passing by a few other doors to different wings of residential. I did pass one pony on my way, but she was reading something as she walked, a bad habit that smart unicorns tended to have. other then that, I was alone with my thoughts, though with having to navigate the stable I was unable to get past the thought of when I sould turn next.

The two maintenance ponies from Labs B were at the elevator when I arrived, their names Easy Fix and Stress Test, of which I only remembered because they actually had name tags on them. Easy Fix walked up to me "Hay Slowtrot! the girls told us you would be coming down here, Miss Healing Herbs must be easier to read then a billboard." When he got close, he poked me with his elbow. "so how about that Candy, cute gal, a bit crazy but who don't like a little spice."

I raised my eyebrow at Easy Fix, it was true that she was cute, but it felt a bit forced, and crazy was not I call a good spice. "True, but I think it's best that..." well the moonshine just hit me, "that I keep things as friends."

Easy Fix shook his head. "you got to live a little more, If I was twenty years younger, and not have yet met my wife, I'd show that girl a good time." He helped me stabilize myself, of which I was thankful for. "now you better not puke on me, Sweet Grass told me that she was not going to wash nothing until she had a full wash."

"Naw, I only do that when I mix my rum with my beers." I blurted out.

"Kid, I got to show you how to make a real drink, you can't just throw to things together." He helped hall me to the elevator.

As Easy Fix helped me into the elevator, not that I needed much help, I was only a little dizzy, just had to wait for the room to stop moving. The floor of the elevator felt like a nice sanctuary for me, alowing me to look up at Stress Test, who was looking down at me.

"How much of the moonshine did they give you?" Stress Test said as he closed the door.

"A soda bottle of it. it's strong stuff, burns real good."

Stress Test huffed, "Just keep it away from any open flames, your breath might still be flammable."

Easy Fix started laughing. "words of wisdom, words of wisdom. So Slowtrot, did you pick up the B lab bottles, because were making a stop a labs A first if you did."

"Ironbuck, pull out a... a B Lab Soda." The bottle lifted out of my pack, and scraped along the mettle floor before rolling away when I blinked.

Picking up the soda, Stress Test put it back in my bag, "Well look at this," I felt him pull out something else, "this sould help you feel better." I heard a twist of a cap, and a bottle being pushed into my mouth. The taste was off, having a bit of a lime flavor to it, but with onions, peas, and a bit of spinach, an overall terrible drink that I drank down greedily. "A Lab Soda, taste awful, but the best hangover cure we have here, and also helps making a pony less drunk."

I really didn't care what he had to say at this point, the after taste was bad enough that I got back on my hooves. "why do you make this stuff! I'm afraid to ask what C lab Soda dose."

"gives you night vision" Stress Test responded.

I face hoofed, but do to still feeling off balanced, I found myself back on the floor. Easy Fix just laughed befor helping me back onto my hooves. "good thing your saddlebags are meant to take a hit, or it would have been a mess in there."

__________________________

Drinking a second A lab soda I had before getting out of the elevator, the stuff still tasted horrible, but helped get my head clear. Labs A was a far lot different then Labs B, it being home to a few small apple orchards, as well as a bunch other rooms growing food. Further in was a laboratory, were they were doing things with said food, if I were smarter I would know what was going on. The smell of the lab itself was makings me hungry, reminding me of a marketplace back home, though with the addition of a burnt small. Even the tech's here looked a lot different, forgoing the lab barding for something that looked more like the cloths farm ponies would use.

Easy Fix, and Stress Test chatted to me about Labs A during our walk, telling me about the different things that were being grown down here, and that soon they will be shipping out portable machines for rescaling wast into food chips. Stress Test didn't like the idea of it, but did agree that it would help a stable survive. Personally I started to think about the green burgers I had the other day, and how Pear Tart told me he used something from a organic matter recycling unit. I would need to as him some questions next time I saw him.

Stopping at a different area of Labs A, the smell of food was not as strong here, and I could hear the sound of machines at work humming through an open door.

"and hear we are at manufacturing," Easy Fix spoke up, pointing down the hall, "if you brake anything, they wont just make a new thing, but a better thing to replace it."

"But do to that Stable-Tec makes everything to last, most of the workers in manufacturing are helping out in other departments." Stress Test added.

Passing by a few rooms, I could see boxes of stuff, most of it was standard Stable-Tec supply, and a lot of raw materials were stacked all over. One room had different versions of stable barding hung up on display, the one I had on was there, as well as another stable barding that would have cover most of a pony's body, which seemed strange to me. A different room, had boxes of pipbucks, pipbuck parts, and pipbuck tools.

The three of us had eventually stopped, Easy Fix pressing the button to opening the door to a workshop, and waving at me to go in. The workshop itself reminded me of the pipbuck Lab, though with far less terminals, and more heavy duty machinery. Inside the workshop there were two ponies: a unicorn stallion and a earthpony mare, both were working in their own area. The unicorn was tinkering with something small, the magic horns were useful with that kind of stuff. The earthpony was working on something bigger, using her strength to push peaces into place.

"Oy! We got your soda here." Stress Test spoke up after he closed the door behind us, "But Candy Pop got in trouble trying to get this stuff to you, so you will need to leet this quiet"

The two ponies stopped their work and walked over, giving the two maintenance ponies a hoof bump.

"Finally, I know the stuff cant be good for me, but it's been hard staying awake." The unicorn spoke up with a tiered enthusiastic. He had a short cream main, and dark gray coat.

"If were going to be done on time, we cant be falling asleep." The earthpony both sounded and looked ready to keel over. her Dark brown mane, and a Light brown coat was stained with grease.

"Well lucky day, thanks to Slowtrot here, we got ten bottles for each of you." He pointed with his hoof to the mare, "Slowtrot, this is Copper Wire," and then to the Stallion, "and Short Fuse" the two also gave me a hoof bump.

Getting a better look at the workshop, it was simply chaotic order, most things seem to have their place, but everything else were all over the place. I could not make heads or tales of the room, other then this was a place for very busy ponies.

Finding a few empty baskets, I placed them near my pipbuck for the bottles to go in. "Ironbuck, place all the sodas I have into the baskets next to me." My saddle bag opened up, and one by one the bottles came out, and lined up on the table. There were twenty one bottles of B lab sodas, and two C lab sodas now in the baskets. I took back the extra bottles leaving them with just the twenty. "so why was she banning this stuff, other then the glow part?"

Stress Test was cleared his throat before speaking up. "The stuff might be mildly addicting, and the glow has a lot of ponies worried about it being safe to even drink. In small amounts it is perfectly safe, but all the same, thees two are the only ones we give the stuff to."

Copper Wire had pushed the bottles under a desk before walking back up to us, "luckily the soda that's made here is a good counter to Labs B soda, tastes terrible, but pumps so much of the good stuff in you, that your body forces itself better. No cure for an addiction, but I heard that Lifebeat is working on that."

"Oh before you go," Short Fuse spoke up, "can we have the two C lab sodas you have, the stuff is good for working on light sensitive projects, will trade you a hat for it."

I was a bit skeptical, but could not think of needing night vision any time soon, so I traded them for the hat. The hat Short Fuse gave me looked a bit like the kind old frontier ponies would have on, also it felt like stable barding, but held it shape even though being entirely flexible. "what the hay is this made out of?" I flopped the dark blue hat onto my head, it actually felt nice and snug.

Short Fuse cracked a smile, "we had a bad batch of material for security barding over a month ago, the canvas was good quality, but would not work for what we needed it for, so we had some fun with it. As it turns out, it was grate for making hats with it, excellent for whenever we get to leave the stable for our time off." I put the hat into my saddlebag, it felt like a real good trade, as hat's did tend to last longer then a soda or two.

"the stuff was also grate for other things, like welding aprons, and covers for my hooves when walking around hot metal. When the stupid war is over, were going to get a patent on the fabric, and get rich." Copper Wire spoke before taking a sip of the B lab soda.

"Just remember you two, keep it to a bottle a day, I doubt that the techs can may any more any time soon, nut mostly I rather not see you get sick because of us." Stress Test voice had a more serous tone to it.

The Copper Wire waved her hoof dismissively, "oh don't worry, we just need to get our little projects done, and then we will get some sleep."

Easy Fix opened the door for us to leave, seeing that the two ponies in the workshop had gone back to work, Stress Test smiled and shook his head before walking out.

"so you think they will be fine, I mean we just gave them something addicting?" I asked the two maintenance ponies, hoping I was not prying.

Stress Test huffed again. "It's potentially mildly addicting, but the moonshine you had earlier is far more addicting then the stuff we gave them, it's the glowing part that has me worried."

We continued down the hall to the elevator, the smell of fresh grown food making my mouth water a little.

__________________________

Once in Labs B, the two maintenance ponies went their own way, saying something about checking on the pipes and such, so I was on my own until I got to the pipbuck lab. With my rout planed out on my pipbucks map, it was not going to be a long walk, so I felt like taking my time to look at some of the open rooms along the way.

Things didn't look any different from the last time I looked around, but now I had more time to look, and with far fewer ponies around. most rooms were empty, and dark, which made me feel uneasy as I passed by them. The rooms that had ponies inside, it was filled with the sound of them tapping away at terminals, and it looked just as boring as it sounded.

"Cat's and curiosity mister Slowtrot, cat's and curiosity" a mares voice spoke softly from behind me, nearly making me jump.

Turning around I saw the black mare standing there, her eyes and lab coat seemingly popped out in contrast to her black main and coat. "oh it's you! I didn't get to thank you for earlier, miss.."

"thy names Phobetor," she said with a regal tone to it. now that I got a better look at her, she was actually cute looking, a bit shadowy, but that had its own charm to it.

"ah.. well thanks Phobearto, I'm actually heading to the pipbuck lab, got some cool research stuff going on, unless your busy?" I gave my best smile, I didn't feel too smart, but I might have the charm at least get on her good side.

Her face scrunched a bit at my question, but quickly relaxed. "I was actually heading down there myself. The work their doing with that pipbuck, it has peeked my interest."

Well that worked well for me, though this did ruin my short quiet time on my way to the pipbuck lab, but sharing that time with a cute mare felt like a good trade. "Oh... they only got it to work properly, and the levitation thing as well." I spoke up as we started to walk together. "but the testing on it sould start soon, well I think it is, not realy all that impressive."

Phobetor giggled a little. "true, but I'm still interested non the less. At the very least it may prove entertaining."

I had to remind myself that this was a stable full of smart ponies, and well also orphans, but down here it was just smart ponies, with interest that just fly over my head. "well I hope it is, I personally can't make heads or tails of all the computer stuff."

"I wouldn't worry about understanding anything," she looked into my eyes, it felt like she was looking through me, "some knowledge is not meant to be understood, just accepted."

The soft hiss of a door opening drew my attention, and in front of me was Emerald Fields, "oh, your here Slowtrot, I was about to go get you, this will save us some time." She motioned with her hoof for me to enter the lab, looking back at Phobetor, but she was again gone. "is there something wrong Slowtrot," Emerald asked with a hint of concern in her voice.

"no, nothings wrong," I turned back to the pipbuck lab, walking passed Emerald, "Just that some of you lab ponies can be a bit... weird. not to offend."

Emerald Fields smiled and rolled her eyes as she closed the door. "oh don't get me started, we got at least three mad scientist down in labs C."

__________________________

Inside the pipbuck lab things were much more busy then they were the last two times I was here. There were more ponies inside, all tapping away on the terminals. Could Bank seamed to be the one in charge of them all, as they would hoof over what I guess were chips before going back to the terminals. June was still at her over sized terminal, tapping away on her keyboard.

"So it's not just the four of us this time?" I asked

"nope, June got the Overmare to free up some of our techs from labs C. With them helping, we can modify the pipbuck with nearly no chance of an error happening, and get right to testing the pipbuck out." Emerald trotted to her desk, it still had gutted pipbucks all over. "now come here, I need to prep your pipbuck."

Stepping up to the desk, I watched her pushed the pipbuck parts to the side, and pulled out in front of me a pipbuck that looked a little different from the normal 3000. The thing looked a little bigger then a regular pipbuck, but seemed less bulky at the same time. The screen didn't pop out as far as it dose on a normal pipbuck, and the sides were much smoother, more like curved plates of metal.

"beautiful isn't she, it's the pipbuck 3200, but we call it the S.R.P. MK 2. Even if were not makings new models for public distribution anymore, ponies will be throwing their bits at stable-tec just to get their hoof on one." she opened a small panel on the S.R.P. and plugged a cable into and looked back up to me. "Now I just need to synchronize your pipbuck to this one here, so can you put your right hoof up in the air?" I did as she asked, and with one swift motion, the S.R.P. was snapped onto my right hoof, and then she once again opened the panel on my pipbuck, and plugged the other end of the cable to it. "this is going to feel a little weird, but it's perfectly safe" she pressed a button on the S.R.P. turning it on.

The E.F.S. became fuzzy as all the displays in my vision activated, "what do you mean by synchronize, and what dose S.R.P. mean?" I was staring to feel dizzy as another set of displays appeared in my vision, turning them all into an unreadable mess.

"search and rescue pipbuck, that's what the S.R.P. stands for. As for the synchronizing, the O.S. on the 2600 is a mess, it's only because the V.I. being in it, that pipbuck has not gone haywire. By synchronizing it to the 3200, were updating the O.S. which sould make cleaning out the rest of the defective security programs, and putting in the programs we need much safer, and faster."

I barely understood what she had just said, but the fuzziness was starting to go away. "ok, but what's an O.S.?"

Emerald sighed, "Operating System, it's the backbone of the pipbuck's software, without it the pipbuck can't even work. It's like how we breath without needing to think about breathing."

I was starting to understand a little, but it still mostly flew over my head. "so without it, the pipbuck doesn't even work, but the one in the 2600 is broken, so your going to replace it with a new O.S." she nodded her head in agreement. The fuzziness was now gone, and there was now only one E.F.S. in my vision. "I think it's done, do I take it off now?"

She shook her head, "it's going to take a little longer, and we will need the two pipbucks to stay on until we finish modifying the 2600." Emerald then pointed at June. "but it sould be ready to be plugged in. let's go over there and set you up." she stepped away from her desk, and walked over to June, I followed her awkwardly, with the two pipbucks on, and the cable between them around the back of my neck.

The ashtray on June's desk was filled with cigaret buds, and she had another cigaret lit up in her muzzle. "Plug him in Emerald, we just need to correct a few more lines of code before were ready." her hooves taping away at the keyboard still, not loosing her focus. Emerald Fields gave me a shrug before plugging the thing in, with her magic.

Cloud Bank trotted over, holding a small basket on a wing, it rattled with the sound of loos chips with each step. "It's so good having a team again, I may be smarter then that hole lot, but I can only work so fast on my own." a grunt came from one of the techs, and Cloud Bank ignored it. "Most of the chips are all cleaned up, and that includes all the ones we need to get the pipbuck set up for testing." Emerald used her magic to take all the chips and plug them into Junes Terminal, the thing looked like it could take ten more.

"I have a question, why do you need this pipbuck, I don't think you ever told me?" I felt this was the best time to ask, they were about to mess with the thing again, and after I was careful to not mess with the settings, or plug it into anything.

Cloud Bank was the first to respond. "Oh we did forget to mention that didn't we... Well after we made the the batch of 2600's, the M.A.S. took them to their labs, and just messed with the everything, though the only thing that came from their tinkering was working stealthbucks, the rest blew up in their face. But that 2600 have some insane ability for holding spells, and if we can tweak the thing just right, we might be able to use it for teleportation!"

Emerald Fields then cut in, "The plan we have is to connect all the stables together using teleportation. The problem is that installing a teleportation chamber is costly, time consuming, and prone to catastrophic failure when even pushed over it's limits a little. Also if some pony is even a little out of the safe zone, then zap, half of them is in one stable, and the other in the one they started in. As it turns out, a sing pony spell is both power efficient, and far safer with a set destination. If we can make it work, we can turn it into a pipbuck attachment and and destination nodes, far cheaper to make, and easier to repair."

Now I'm not a very smart pony, but I understood that clearly. The first thing to come to mind was what if a stable was failing, with teleportation they could just move to another stable and wait for it to get repaired. That or if leaving a stable is impossible, they could simply leave through a different stable.

June turned her seat around to look at us, "Everything is in order, so get conformable Slowtrot, this is going to take some time to download into the pipbuck" she took a long deep inhale of her cigaret, and then exhaled the wight smoke, covering her face in the cloud. "you can say were just a hop skip and a jump away from the next big advancement in science. It's the shit I live for." well I was already sold, June being a bad ass scientist that will save lives with science, that was like the rich chocolate that covered a cake, it made something good into something awesome.

Emerald had put down a cushion next to the main terminal, for me to lay down on, it being comfy enough that I could sleep on it if I wanted to. All the techs were at their terminals, long cables all tangling together, connecting to Junes terminal, their eyes looking at her, nervously waiting for it to start.

In a dark corner of the lab, I could see two golden eyes looking at me, and gleaming white teeth formed a smile. Phobetor stepped out of the shadows, mouthing words to me, but she was too far away for me to hear what she was saying, but the hair along my spine stood up, something I didn't know what felt wrong.

I tired to turn my head an ask June to hold off for a minute, but found that I couldn't move, nor could anyone else. Time had stopped for me, S.A.T.S. had activated on it's own, and I could not turn it off.

Error. Error. Counter information leak program deactivated... User termination activated... error.. User Termination deactivated...

the green message flashed into my vision, I could only feel relieved that it was not going to kill me, but time was still not moving, making me worry that something lase was about to go wrong.

file corrupted... file missing... file found, retrieving memory.

grate, was it going to show me another O.I.A. message, or memory... wait, what the hell is a O.I.A.?

"it's the Office of Inter-Ministry Affairs, not something a simpleton like you would now anything about." Phobetor spoke as she stepped around the frozen ponies. "Now give me the secret your pipbuck holds, the secret that Luna let get away from her." she now stood face to face with me, her golden eyes looking past my own, like I was nothing to her, just another hurdle to walk around. "secrets that may have even been keeped away from Luna herself."

Memory retrieved, reactivating sleeper agent. activating operation: Burial at Sea

__________________________

The salty water of the ocean caressed my cheek, the moonless night bathed everything in darkness, and the rocking of the boat felt like I was in my mothers hooves. On the water before me was a grand warship, it's lights making it seem to glow in the darkness, I could feel myself sigh as my eyes stared at the ship.

"Captain Roseland" A light gray unicorn mare with a cyan mane stood at my side. "everything is in order, we just need your approval for the operation to start." her salute was firm and with propose, but my eyes returned to the ship, on not my eye, her eyes had returned to looking the ship.

"At ease Lieutenant." the right hoof of the body I was in reached out at the ship, and moved it in a way as though trying to caress is. "we have one last thing to do."

The voice, the feeling of the body, and how the pipbuck 2600 felt on her leg, I was back in Thorn Roseland. I tried to rack my brain around what was going on, but because of the lack of any control I had over what the body was doing, any clear thought I had were forced from me every time she move or talked.

"He's a wonderful thing to behold, so strong, so capable, and loyal to it's core." Thorns hoof still pining the air at the warship. "Why dose that old fool get to be your lover when it sould be me." A crack of a smile formed on Thorns lips, as she retracted her hoof her head slowly turned to the Lieutenant. "The operation cannot begin until after I meet with with Admiral Life Jacket." The lieutenant remained stoic and, but Thorns eyes focused on a slight twitch in the lieutenants left eye. "now send me over to the Levitation lieutenant, can't keep the others waiting."

The lieutenants horn began to glow, and then everything slipped way, it felt like I was falling, like Thorn was falling. It all ended almost as soon as it began, and before me was a Unicorn Stallion, light blue coat, and pail green mane, saluting Thorn.

"Welcome aboard The flagship EQNC Levitation," the stallion spoke softly.

Thorns eyes scanned all around her, giving me a better look at the ship. Everything about this ship was huge, I could only see a little bit of it from where Thorn was, but the row of massive cannons was all I needed to know about it's destructive the ship can be. Thorn ran her hoof gently along the metal floor, shivering a little when she did. "are you happy to see me again, I'm happy to see you." her voice sounded genital, and a bit sweet. Turning her gaze back up to the stallion, her voice became a firm whisper, "Lieutenant, stand guard here, and wait for my return." The stallion gave another salute, not showing any sign of speaking more then he already had.

Using her stealthbucks, Thorn quickly walked down the deck of the ship, and slipped inside an open door, her hooves making little to no sound on each step. inside the Leviathan it was was quiet, with only a few ponies out and about working, giving the ship an felling of calm, and anticipation. Most of the navy ponies that were up were sitting around: playing cards, and reading books were a common pastime from what I could see.

Thorn eventually stopped at a door, next to it was a metal place with the name 'Admiral Life Jacket' in bold print. I could feel Thorns right hoof raise up to the door, and right before she knocked, her stealthbuck finally giving out. Straitening out her uniform as she waited, a green marker on the E.F.S. showed that some pony was moving around on the other side. It was a couple of seconds before the door opened, Admiral Life Jacket was an older orange unicorn stallion, his beard was a good hoof long, and along with his mane, all white as snow. "Thorn! One day you have to tell me how you can sneak onto my ship so easily" he gave me a smile, and let me in, let her in.

"if I told you how, then I wouldn't be so special to you, wouldn't I?" Thorn fluttered her eyes at the old stallion as he closed his door.

"I don't like the idea of torching my own subordinates, but you realy do push the line with me." the old pony, from what I could guess was Admiral Life Jacket, walked over to a liquor cabinet, and poured himself, and Thorn a glass of brown liquid. "you need to stick to normal channels Thorn, I can't protect you if your found were your not meant to be."

"but I do love the wipes and paddles." sitting on the bed, she took the glass in hoof, and had a sip. it must have been Wild Pegasus, but a well ages label, the vapor alone tasted spectacular. "but don't worry about me, I do have my own connections, it's been over a year since I was your executive officer."

Life Jacket sighed as he sat next to Thorn. "why are you here Thorn, you have your own ship to take care of." his tone was stern, not looking at her when she looked at him. The closeness had me feeling worries, and only worried me more when she put her head on his shoulder.

"Can't I just come and see you, it's been too long already."

Life Jacket gently pushed her off him, "Dammit Thorn, my wife already thinks somethings up, if she found out about you, it kill her." he downed his glass before walking bad to the liquor cabinet, "lets stop this, you can easily find a nice stallion, so go do that."

"you know she doesn't care for you," Thorn put her glass on the nightstand, and got off the bed. "not like I do, when was the last time she even said she loves you." Life Jacket flinched at her words, almost spilling some of the whiskey as he poured himself another glass.

"But I still love her." he put the glass down, "just go Thorn, the thing between us, it's over."

Thorn had walked right up on the Admiral left, he was looking at nothing but his drink, his eyes downcast. "I'm sorry." I could feel Thorn put a hoof around him in a hug, he didn't move, other then to put the bottle of whiskey down. "if things were different." the hoof moved up to his neck. "then I would never had needed to fuck you." his eyes suddenly locked with hers, almost like he was looking passed her, and at me.

Time stopped, and Life Jacket became highlighted in a green glow, stating a 99% chance to hit. Then it was just his head that was highlighted, and an option to execute appeared next to strike. Time then began to return to normal speed, with my eyes unable to look away as Thorns left hoof came up, and together with her right hoof, twisted Life Jacket's head nearly backwards. By the time he hit the floor, time had returned to normal, Life Jacket was dead in but a split second.

Thorn was calm, no worse, she was happy, I could feel her mouth contort to a wide grin, then she started to sing, her voice filled with a pleasant malice.

"This night is going to be perfect." she dragged Life Jacket's body back into bed, tucking him in as though he was just sleeping. "The kind of night of which I dreamed since I was small." taking the two glasses filled with whiskey, she dumped the Wiled Pegasus down the drain, and cleaned the glasses before putting them away. "Everypony will gather round." she then walked up to the trophy's in the room. "Say that I'm heroic with my honors." Grabbing a sword used by zebras officers, Thorn warped it up and attached it to her belt. "What they don't know is that I have fooled them all."

Thorn put the bottle of whiskey back into it's place, and look around the room, all signs that any other pony was here, was now gone.

I could care less about the rank.

I won't partake in any parade.

Oaths, well I will be lying when I say.

That I swear to defend Equestria,

from enemies, foreign and domestic.

The truth is I don't care for it at all.

No I do not love Equestria,

In my heart there is no room.

All I want is this ship to be all mine.

The gaze she had in a nearby looking glass sealed my disgust, her eyes felt vicious, and a wiled smile that seemed filled with glee.

Turning on her second stealthbuck, Thorn stepped out of Life Jacket's room, quietly closing the door behind her. The ship was once more back to it's still quietness, with the few navy ponies that were about, how they were ignorant to what had just happened. It filled me with rage i had never known, wanting tell the navy ponies that she was here, that they needed to stop her. Thorn got outside unopposed, each step on the deck felt like she was doing a victory dance. I wanted to scream, to throw up, to do anything but be in her body, yet I was trapped.

The stealthbuck deactivated as Thorn got in sight of her second unicorn lieutenant, who was waiting for her in the same spot she had arrived. As she trotted up to him, his horn began to glow, and Thorn looking back at the ship, slowly waving her hoof at it, as though caressing the ship. "sorry my love, we must part for now, but soon we will be together, forever." Once more, and the same sensation of falling came.

__________________________

The other end of the teleportation never came, bringing me to a stillness that freed my mind to finally think properly, but only to realize an oppressing darkness that surrounded me. It had a coldness that passed thru my fur, and my attempt hold myself didn't help keep me warm...

"oh shit, I cam move... I can talk!" tapping by back hooves I found something solid for me to stand on, which was strange as I was floating before. I checked a myself quickly to confirm that I was no longer a mare, with everything in the right spot. "right, so were in tartarus am I?"

"not a bad guess, for a simpleton"

Phobetor voice spoke inside my head as a gigantic golden orb appeared before me, like a sun that gave no light in this darkness.

I slowly backed away from from the orb, unsure that it would do any good. "What's going on, what are you!"

"Oh I think you can guess, you ponies do fear my kind so dearly."

The golden orb back away, as the darkness took form, revealing a harsh landscape around me. I stood on top of a spire made of solid stone, and all around were other spires, each one had a flat top, and a cage. Looking back to the spire I was on, the darkness had formed into a black dragon with golden eyes, it formed from a cage under it, the inside of the cage was consumed with a black fog, with two golden eyes staring back at me from the darkness.

"honestly, I'm feeling a bit too freaked out to make any guesses." I quivered as I spoke.

__________________________

Footnote:

75% to next level

Chapter 7 - Burial at Sea, part two

Fallout Equstria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 7 - Burial at Sea, part two

“It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom.”

― Albert Einstein

__________________________

So long story short, I'm dead, and for all the good I did... ehh, actually let's just go with the not evil I was, that sounds correct, I'm now dead and in Tartarus.

"I knew I sould not have taken that cooky, but I was hungry, and mom said that I could have one the day before, but this is a bit too much."

"Silence"

"I also would have given more to charity, but money has been so tight I just could not do more then spar a few bits"

"stop wining fool"

"and I know I tended to stare at mare flacks a bit too long sometimes, but that's natural, I'm a stallion, and I like mare, it can't be that terrible of a crime!"

The black dragon roared with a ferocity the knocked me off my hooves, rendering me speechless again. The grate dragon, slumped back over the cage, it seemed to be made of the black fog the seeped from withing the cage. The two golden eyes floated about from inside the cage, taking time to glare at me. "Fist off, you are not dead, merely asleep. Second, you will not be able to wake up until that memory you were having is over. And last, if you do not calm down, I'll see to it that you do die, so stop your wining." the dragon flicked it's tail at me, but it simply passed through, filling me with a cold chill.

I raised a hoof to ask a question, the eyes closed for a few seconds before glaring at me again.

"speak"

"Phobetor, it might help me stay calm if you take a pony form, all of this is ah, a bit too much." I didn't know what was making me more nervous, the dragon, or the black fog with eyes.

Inside the cage, the black fog shrank and took form, in but a few seconds the black mare Phobetor stood before me, her golden eyes still glaring. The dragon was still there, it's form seeming part of the cage itself. "Now are you calm?" the voice was now much softer.

"calmer" I was still freaked out.

"Good, I cannot have you suddenly die until they get that pipbuck safely off of you, and it would be so irritating for myself to be the one who killed you before then." Now I was feeling a bit confused, so I raised my hoof again, but she started talking, ignoring me. "It has been said that one cannot die in a dream, but that is a lie. Without my timely intervention, that memory you are force to have, the one that now prevents you from waking, it would have torn your sad little mind asunder."

"wait, how is that possible?"

Phobetor gave me a coy smile. "ah, the deal was a secret for a secret, but I can let this one go for free, think of it as a peace of charity. The pipbuck on your leg, no not just that pipbuck, but all the pipbucks that are made, They have a little magic trick to them. How they get it all their little programs to work on a pony, the E.F.S. and the S.A.T.S. it all go right through a ponies brain. An interesting shortcut, ingenuous realy, but it also leaves the mind vulnerable, opens a door you can say."

"and how can that kill me?"

She giggled, holding a hoof up to her mouth when she did. "a pony can live with a hole in their skull, but if they shake their head around, the brain might just come out." Phobetor then pointed a hoof to her head, with a grin on her face. "and you Slowtrot, thanks to your pipbuck you have one big magical hole in your head, and the memory's of this Thorn Roseland, it was going to shake that brain right out."

I raised my hoof up again, and Phobetor gave me a nod. "and you sead I cant wake up until the memory is over, right, so I'm fucked?"

"Fist, learn a better vocabulary. Second, that depends on me." she sat down, and crossed her back hooves. "I can give you the protection you need to survive, for a fair price that is."

At this point, my feeling freaked out had subsided enough for my bullshit meeter to go off. Right now, I was being given a deal from a monster mare, who also happens to be locked away in Tartarus, there is no way this is not going to bit me in the flank if I agree. "and what do you want, my soul?"

Phobetor rolled her eyes. "I only want one of two things. When you have returned to the waking world, you will finds me hidden knowledge, a secret. Your reward by agreeing to this, will be that I shale provide the protection needed to survive the rest of the memory."

Ok, so no live sacrifices, I hope, that's a good start. "and what is the second thing you want?"

Phobetor giggled again. "that's another secret I will soon have, no worry about that." her gaze and smile felt far more wicked then before.

It didn't take much time thinking about it, I didn't know if she was lying to me, but if I put two and two together, this mare would kill me if I said no, or simply leave me to die. My only options were life or death. "Fine, I'll agree to it."

A black and gold helm rolled to my hooves, it looked like the kind that the royal guards would have worn "that's for the soft spot on your head." looking back up at Phobetor, she was now eating popcorn. "put it on." the popcorn part irritated me, making me feel a little hungry.

Lifting the helm, it realy didn't look much different from any other guard helm, except being black and gold. "so what's stopping me from telling anypony about you?"

Again with a giggle. "because you won't remember any of this at all, you will be my loyal sleeper agent, forever ignorant."

with that I put the helmet on, and everything slipped away into darkness.

__________________________

I was back inside Thorn's memory, the mare body still feeling odd, and her straight intimating. Both the lieutenants were with her now, my guess was that the stallion had teleported with her back to the ship. Thorn was once again looking at the Leviathan, though she was not making the same motions as before.

"Begin the operation, I'll be in my room having a little fun." Thorn spoke, the two lieutenants saluting before they both left, going separate directions down the deck. Thorn herself turned on her last stealthbuck, trotted inside the ship unseen.

As she moved silently down the halls, it all felt different from before, the sneaking was the same, but just how it all felt to me, how it felt like I was sneaking next to her. I could feel each step, each breath she made, but none of it felt like I was doing it, but like I was mimicking her, she was her, and I was me, but I was also right there. My mind didn't feel as distracted, with every noise, and every movement failing to bark my train of thought, and my focus. It all filled me with a strange foreboding calm, I didn't know what would happen next, but from what I've already learned about Thorn, it may involve more death, and I was calm about it.

Thorn made it all the way to her room, the short few seconds she spent looking at the sign, next to the door, was all I needed to see her name etched in the brass. The inside inside of her room looked bare, other then the molded of the Levitation, everything was a monochrome of gray, with a few reads and blues doting the room. In the center of the room were three large traveling cases, feeling out of place as they were lined up.

Trotting up to the first case on the left, Torn unzipped the case and pushed it over, and out fell an unicorn mare in a navy uniform. She had a yellow coat, and purple mane, an overall pretty mare. I could only feel sorry for her. "Wake up petty officer Evening Light." Thorn kicked her in the side, rewarding her with a gasp as the mare began to move. "tonight you get to be a hero."

"Captain, what's going on" Evening Light gasped out panicked, "why am I in your room?"

"why indeed, other then you being one of Pinkies little agents."

"what! how!" with panicked motions, Evening Light struggled to get up, but only managed to push herself backwards.

"Oh Pinky is good at what she dose, but is also terrible at picking spies." Thorn pulled out the Zebra sword she took from Life Jacket's room, slowly undoing the cloth she had wrapped it in. "Actually, that's not all that true, you would have made a good spy, too bad I have the memory's of all my officers be checked." she stroked the pipbuck on her left leg, as she calmly looked at the now terrified Evening Light. I could sympathize with her. "Memory magic is a fantastic thing, keeps every pony in order, never loosing sight on why they fight." the sword now was being drawn from it scabbard, it's handle seemed to be made for being puled out and held by hoof. "so how many moths are you along now, it must be a good three, which would mean there are six more to go."

Evening Light had scooted back all the way to Thorn's bed, and was not using it to hold herself up. "what are you talking about?"

"Oh, you must have forgot, your pregnant" with one thrust, the sword plunged deep into Evening Light's chest as Thorn leaned in closer "though I still don't know which ones the father, not that it matters now." twisting the blade with her other hoof, the blood flowed out of the mares wound, splattering on the floor as she groaned in pain. Thorn let the sword slip from her hoof, and watched Evening Light fall to the floor, choking up blood.

Thorn took a few steps back, and return her attention to the two other cases, the room retuning to silences after Evening Light gave one last gasp of air. Their was no denying it for me, Thorn is a monster. Unzipping the case in the middle, she tipped it over as well, this time a zebra stallion fell out. This one also didn't move until Thorn gave him a kick, I could only guess that some magic was involved to keep them asleep inside the case.

The zebra spoke, and though I could not understand what he was saying, I did understand that he sounded very scared. Thorn didn't give the zebra any time to back away as she trotted onto him, and struck him in the face with the pipbuck. Blood splattered on the floor from the strike, the zebra whimpering from the pain. She brought down a few more strikes until the zebra stooped moving, and then lifting on both her back hooves, she brought both her front hooves down on the zebra, caving his head in. The gore spread out everywhere, bits and peaces of brain and bone decorating the room. The blood from the zebra quickly meeting that of Evening Light, making a large pool on the floor.

Once more, Thorn opened the last case, this time a zebra mare fell out, rolling onto the blood. Unlike the last two, she woke up from the fall, and immediately righted herself. Thorn watched her as he quickly scanning the room, when the zebra locked eyes with Thorn, I could feel intense hate in her stare. "What have you done, you pony scum!" she almost looked exactly like the posters back home, though covered in blood.

Thorn just smiled, "Is words all you got, and here I was told you were a fighter, shame." slowly she walked to the zebra, calm, smiling, and even I could feel her intent on killing again.

In a flash, the zebra had in one swift motion, throwing blood in Thorns face, jumped to the side, and pulled the sword from Evening Light chest. Wiping the blood from her face, Thorn jumped back, just missing a slash from the sword to her neck. A vertical slash them cam down at Thorn, but then she jumped into the attack, ramming the zebra with upper part of the pipbuck. Stumbling back, the zebra quickly put some distance between her and Thorn, saving her leg from a hoof strike. The zebra then went in for a lung, the sword pointed strait for Thorns chest, only standing on her two back hooves as she did. Thorn managed to deflect the strike by knocking it to the side with the pipbuck, counting the mare with a right hoof strike to the mares chest. The zebra fell back again, but this time Thorn threw blood in her opponents face, the zebra loosing her balance, and falling to the floor. The sword slid across the room, leaving a broken line of blood on the floor from the hilt and the blade.

"Now that was disappointing, you didn't even get a cut on me." Thorn's voice sounded boastful.

"What is it you want pony, why bring me here? If your going to kill me, then kill me." the zebra got back onto all for hooves, but now struggled to stay upright.

Thorn gave a little laugh, and turned her back to the zebra walking to the sword. "it's quit simple realy, I just needed you to run around a little, and get the blood to spread around with your hoof prints."

I could hear hooves hitting metal from behind, Thorn's ears twitched at the sound, and she leaned forward, raised her flank, and then releasing a force full buck. I could feel the back of her hooves connect with the zebra, and not slow down until they had fully extended out. A loud thump hit the wall behind Thorn, and when she turned to look, the zebra mare was flat on the floor, blood coming out of her mouth.

Thorn slowly walked up to the zebra, the mare wheezing each breath. "Why" the zebra let out before Thorn brought down a hoof onto her skull, the loud sould of a crack under her hoof.

Walking to the door of her room, Thorn stopped at an intercom, pressing one of the buttons. "WHITE WATER, YOU BETTER RESPOND TO ME IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS!" Her voice was loud, and stressed.

withing three seconds the intercom turned on, the voice was that of a nervous stallion, "Captain Roseland! what's the matter?"

Thorn's face twisted into a wide grin. "I need you to contact Admiral Life Jacket at once! I was just attacked by two zebra assassins, if it was not for petty officer Evening Light, I'd be dead."

There was a short four second pause before the intercom turned back on "yes Captain! Right away Captain!"

Stepping away from the intercom, Thorn walked to the three cases, and kicked them to the side of the room, splattering more blood all around. She then went up to Evening Light body, all light in her eyes had long vanished. "see, now you get to be a hero. Without your death, I would not have been able to save the fleet." taking a mostly clean sheet from the bed, she used it to wipe some of the blood away, as well as the bit's and peaces of gray matter, and bone.

The seen didn't feel real to me, how calm she was, how easily she killed them all, and how I was no longer trying to scream to get out. I did feel horrified, this was a truly horrifying, but Thorns calm demeanor seem to also keep me calm.

A banging from the door, drawing Thorns attention. "Captain! are you alright." throwing the sheet over Evening Light, she walked to the door, the blood under her hooves making a sticky wet noise at each step. Opening the door, two navy ponies stood on the other side. "Captain, we were told...." the to ponies froze, though it was hard to tell if it was because of Thorn, or because of what Thorn had done.

She pushed passed them, "I'm going to the bridge, no time for a shower." she began walking down the hall, the sound of the door to her room closing, and the two navy ponies mumbling to themselves before following her, were the only noise i could hear before the ship burst into activity. The call for all hooves on desk rang out, and soon the ship filled with the sound of hooves on metal, which became like thunder.

It didn't take long to get to command, with all traffic yielding to Thorn as she passed. The command room was silent, all staring at Thorn as soon as she arrived. taking her seat, she looked over the room. "Report!"

"it's bad Captain, real bad." the stallion spoke with the nervous voice of White Water, his light blue coat, and a white main and tale, matched the name well. "The Admiral, he's..."

"Spit it out!" Thorn snapped at White Water.

"Dead mam, Admiral Life Jacket is dead." he almost cowered back as he spoke the words.

Thorn's hoof slammed down on the metal arm of her chair, sending a shock of pain up her leg. "Contact the Baltimare, Vice Admiral Driftwood is in next in in the chain of command." she looked around the deck, the rest of the ponies were all quiet. "GET BACK TO POSITION, those zebras didn't just appear out of thin air, they must have a ship on the waters, now find it! We will have revenge for this." Thorn growled the last sentence. All the ponies saluted, and jumped right to their posts.

"EQNC Fillydelphia, this is the EQNC Manehattan, come in Fillydelphia."

The other ships that Thorn could see from her seat were now completely lighting up, beaming searchlights on the water. I could not help but think they might actually find something, probably more of Thorns victims.

"Vice Admiral Driftwood, is dead." White Water spoke dejected, as he shook his head.

"then contact the next in the chain in command" Thorn growled

"so are Rear Admiral Bottled Message, and Commodore Long Voyage."

the crew started whispering to themselves, but a quick glare from Thorn got them back to work. "This is a nightmare" she said to herself.

"CAPTAIN, A ZEBRA FLEET SPOTTED TO THE SOUTH!" the voice of a mare yelled out.

"Contact Commodore Icebreaker, hes next in the chain of command." Thorn spoke firmly, and pulled a nearby microphone to her. "This is Captain Thorn Roseland, all hands prepare for combat, I repeat prepare for combat."

"Reports in, Icebreakers dead, the next in the chain is... is you mam, you are now the acting Admiral."

Thorn gave a long sigh, before she looked up at her crew. "contact the rest of the fleet, the Manehattan will take the command position in the fleet formation, the Leviathan will be our escort. Also, relay this message, we will take no prisoners."

An icon came up in the upper right of my vision, stating that quest completed: Burial at Sea, and then everything faded into darkness.

__________________________

Now back in the darkness, and free from the memory, I starched my not quite real body out. "pleas tell me that's all. I realy don't want to see any more death."

The darkness receded once more, reveling the dragon, the cage, and Phobetor. "Shame, I was hoping for something more then just a coup. There was no deal with ancient monsters, no magical artifacts, and no necromantic ritual." Phobetor sighed. "Yes simpleton, the memory is over, you may return to the waking world."

"One question before I go?" Phobetor gave me a board look, but nothing else. "I know I'm not going to remember the answer, or the question, or well any of this. But what was different, what did you do to me to make the memory feel... make me feel calmer through it."

For a second Phobetor eyes widened. "not bad, maybe your not all just simple. I lent you a peace of myself for the memory, allowing you to adsorb it, but still be a viewer. Where before it was forcing your mind and the memory to be one of the same, like a puzzle peace that dose not fit, but through me it simply became a new part of you."

"your saying that a part of that monster is in me?" I snapped at her.

She gave me a smile, tilting her head ever so slightly "Yes, though it be simpler to say that the memory of Thorns actions are now a part of you, each moment, heartbeat, and breath. All that she did, it was imprinted on that pipbuck, and now onto you... so sweet dreams Slowtrot."

I was once more consumed by darkness, but this time, a warmth as well.

__________________________

"Everyone, Slowtrot is waking up!" Emerald Field's voice sounded relieved.

my vision was hazy, my body a bit stiff. "Ok, what happened this time."

Emerald Field help me back onto my hooves, "it seams that there was a faulty program still activated, and when we went to take it out, the thing went ballistic. You got knocked you out, but luckily that was all it did. So we just had to isolate it before trying to get rid of the program entirely."

ya, I still didn't understand what she said all that well, but I was alive, and still in the lab. "so how long was I out?"

June this time spoke up. "Just a few hours, practically through the hole program modification. We had Lifebeat look you over to be careful, but he said you were fine, so we decided to finish all the modification. Which means, we just need to finish making the key for that thing, and your home free." Emerald had began unplugging the pipbucks as June was talking. "but you did agree to help us out a little before we send you home, so we can take our time on that."

I felt a weight lifted off my right hoof, the pipbuck 3200 floated away in the green glow of Emeralds magic. "We sould all get something to eat first, everyone has been working hard, and I want something other then another meal chip." Emerald spoke with an upbeat tone.

"I don't know, I'd like to take an extra look at the pipbuck's new code." Cloud Bank spoke with a bit of a yawn. "But good food sounds like a good plan, I for one can use some cider."

"Well then, let's eat drink and get some rest, then we can get back to work." June was already trotting out of the door, the rest of the techs quickly followed her.

Cloud Bank paused for a few second before rushing out the door. "I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU GUYS GRAB ALL THE MUFFINS THIS TIME!"

Emerald walked to the door. "Let's get going, or there will be nothing but green burgers left to eat." she gave a little smile at her comment.

ok, I now realy didn't want to know what's in the green burgers, which meant I didn't want to eat any more of them. So I quickly trotted after the others, it was not a race, but muffins did sound good.

__________________________

Footnote:

Level up: Level 1

Tagged skills:

Hoof to Hoof

Sneak

Speech

Trait Changed: Good Natured is now Sympathetic Nightmares- Slowtrot never had treatable Nightmares before, now he has of crimes he didn't commit. Sleep now has a -%25 to rest, and -5 to all skill for a short time after sleeping, but gains a extra 5% critical chance.

Chapter 8 - Two Smoking Barrels

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 8 - Two Smoking Barrels

“Semi-automatics have only two purposes. One is so owners can take them to the shooting range once in awhile, yell yeehaw, and get all horny at the rapid fire and the burning vapor spurting from the end of the barrel. Their other use – their only other use – is to kill”

― Stephen King

__________________________

Luckily there was enough food to go around, mainly muffins, one of the tech said that it was because so many ponies were wining about not getting any, that Pear Tart made a tone more this time. There were some all green one, of which I did not pic. What I did enjoyed was a nice blueberry and a chocolate muffin, along with some apple cider.

"so after he installed the dance program into the pipbuck 2800, he took it to the dance floor confident that it was going to work it's first try." Cloud Bank had a smirk on his face as he was telling the story. "I tried to tell him that even though the S.A.T.S. can help with targeting a weapon, but getting it to pull out dance moves may overtax it. Well he proved me wrong when turnd it on. I've never seen an old pony move like that before, real five star stuff, But only one problem, the dace moves were for ponies younger, and far more flexible then he was. The poor fool threw out his back, and had retire."

That sounded both painful and hilarious at the same time. The others just chuckled at it, I could only guess that they had heard it before, they were probably there when it happened.

Cloud Bank sighed, "because of that, and a few other accidents, we had to put most S.A.T.S. research on hold."

"I miss that old fool, he may have been foolishly overambitious, but he was a real charmer." June voice sounded a little sad as she spoke. "I remember when he tried to make a chat option list for the S.A.T.S. for when he was talking to mares. But seeing that he time and agent getting cups of water splashed in his face, I tried it on to see what was wrong with it. As it turned out, he used some dating simulation game for the text options, all of it was cheesy and stupid. He still doesn't forgive me for deleting it."

"I remember that," Cloud Bank chuckled, "He vowed revenge over that, and stuck duck tape all over your work area, and your terminal."

June groaned, "I sould have known that was him." taking a sip of her cider, June looked over at me. "So Slowtrot, got any story's? I've heard that Applewood can be a crazy place at times."

"Well, Let me think.." there was a few things that I had seen over the years, mainly it was drunk ponies, doing stupid drunk ponies stuff. "there was one time some pony burst out into song, but I think they were just off their medicine or something, so every pony ignored it."

"That's all, what about the times you went out to the bar with your friends, or had a party with your roommates." Emerald added.

I fiddled with the remains of one of my muffins, another kind of question I strongly disliked being asked, as I never had a good answer other then a lie. "Well I never realy had the time for that stuff, when I did have a roommate, we were too busy to do much." it was more that my roommate at the time had other ponies to hang out with, and I just did a hole lot of nothing with my time, mainly walk around the city before it got dark.

"well you must at least have had a few friends you handed out with." Emerald pushed, It felt annoying, but I knew she meant well.

"I did have a friend I hanged out with a lot, but we drifted apart after he confessed his love for me. I wasn't into stallions, he was, and I don't think he could be around me when he still had feelings." And now everything was awkward, too much information Slowtrot.

Cloud Bank snickered, "So how many Stallions have confessed to you?" he was trying to hold back his amusement, and was doing a poor job of it.

"just the one," I said as flatly as possible. It was not a topic I wanted to get further into.

A long yawn cam from June. "I'd love to stay and chat some more, but I need to get some rest. Cloud Bank, take the teem to the testing chambers, see if you can get it set up in an hour, come get me when it's ready."

"you know I need some rest as well." Cloud Bank responded with a huff.

"and you will get some when your done." June got up, and walked away.

Cloud Bank paused for a moment before looking upset. "That's not fair, there are laws about this, LAWS!" He futilely waved a hoof at June, but she was already going out the door.

Sighing, Emerald got up out of her seat at the table. "alright every pony, we got some teleportation tests to do, so let's get to it." she had a hoof in the are in excitement, and the rest of the techs cheered with enthusiasm as they got out of their sets, and were lead out the door by Emerald.

Cloud Bank Floated out of his seat, his wings flapping very slowly. "Just stay in Labs B Slowtrot, and we will come get you when were ready." his wings still flapping slowly, he floated out of the cafeteria.

It was nice to have everything all quiet again, not that I didn't like their company, I did, but all the same I didn't like being in crowds all that much, and most of the techs would keep glancing at me. Though to be fair, It was probably the pipbuck they were looking at, but it still bothered me.

It wasn't even all the tech's that had left, Pear Tart was also in the back room sorting out his supplies, it was something about keeping track of the numbers. I didn't understand the terminology every pony here like to throw around, but I understood what they were basically saying: every pony down here here was doing some sort of research, so a janitor was never simply just a janitor, and had a far better education then I did. Now thinking about it, if I'd applyed myself more at college, I might gotten a job... no, no, even knew I'd come up short no matter how hard I worked, always did. And now I made myself feel depressed.

Turning my attention back on my food, the blueberry muffin was long eaten up, Pear Tart knew what he was doing, with the right amount of moister to then, it was one of the best blueberry muffin I ever had. I finished the rest of my chocolate muffin, it was awesome as well, most bakers tend to go with simple milk chocolate, good in its own right, but he had managed to get the dark chocolate just right for it. Washing the rest down with the cider, it all felt warm in my belly, though it might have been just the cider, it being 1% alcohol did a nice trick at helping everyone relax.

Looking at the counter, there was still more food and cider, and I felt I could eat a little more. refilling my glass, then lifted a different muffing with the pipbucks levitation spell, and placed it on the table before doing the same with the glass. I was realy liking this levitation thing, hooves were good for walking, but not good for holding anything. The new muffin was the apple crumble, I have had it before back home, but never liked how it would just fall apart everywhere. Luckily this muffin was not as crumbly as I remember them to be, but still a few bits did fall to the table.

"Enjoying yourself?" I almost jumped out of my seat, and chocked on the muffin. Phobetor sat across from me, how she got there and not be seen when I sat down, I do not know.

"duunff duuu tuut" I guzzled some of the cider to help swallow the mouthful of muffin. "Don't do that." I gasped.

"Oh settle down Slowtrot," Phobetor waved a hoof, the pipbuck on it did seem to fit rite, or well look right. "you shouldn't be so easily frightened, not of little me."

"I was not frightened, you just startled me that's all." seriously, this mare was starting to creep me out a bit. Why was it that the only two mare here that were around my age, also happened to be the crazy ones. "you missed the upgrade to the pipbuck."

"oh I didn't miss it, it provided some entertainment, as well as being educational." Phobetor had a smile on her face that did not sit well with me, but I don't know why. "But that moment has passed, and I have something I need you to do for me."

I was feeling conflicted, I had only met the girl earlier this morning, so I was hoping it was something stupidly simple, like open a jar of pickles, I could do that, well some of the time. "right, what do you need me to do?"

"well it's nothing like opening a jar of pickles, I just need you to pickup something from the overmares office. Just canter on over there when you have a moment." Phobetor got out of her seat, "oh and before you ask about what your looking, you will know it when you find it." she held her smile, and then walked over to, and out the door.

"Seriously Phobetor?" I just scratched my chin, and groaned.

Pear Tart trotted out of his back room. "Who were you talking to out there, unless you were talking to yourself?"

"Just... another one of your strange tech's down here." what ever here talent was, it probably involved giving others heart attacks.

"Is that all, if they were here for a potato, tell them that we have spark battery's, they sould just use them." and now more stuff that flew over my head, I was starting to suspect that it had to do less with me not being all that smart, and more to do with every pony here being weird.

"I'll remember that if any pony asks me." I turned my attention back to the muffin, and I savored every bite of it.

__________________________

Labs B was busy again, though there was no massive change in ponies down here, more rooms had their lights on, and every now and then a pony would be going from one room to the next. Most of the ponies would not give me much of a glance, of which I could understand, as they must all be busy with something.

As I trotted around, I could hear the sound of a pop now and again, it being out of place from the sound of tapping keyboards, and the hum of the terminals. Tracking the sound, I found it came from a room which still had it's door open, which to me meant I could at least take a look around.

To my amazement, the room had guns and gun parts all over the place, everything neatly lined up, and having it's own place. Taking a closer look, each table had just one kind of gun on it, and a ton of parts that looked to be for that gun. One table had a pistol, another had a shotgun, a third had a rifle, but what caught my eye was a table that has some kind of boxy thing with a mouth trigger attached to it.

"that there is a magical energy gun kiddo." the voice of an old stallion surprised me, almost making me jump.

Turning around, I saw the old stallion from the small party yesterday, this stable barding had a number of belts, of which had rifle holsters on it. I could not remember his name. "sorry, the door was open, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to take a look."

"No harm done, ya didn't touch the guns, so I got no reason to get upset." his accent reminded me of some of the miner ponies that lived in the mountains, they always had some story's about dealing with the monsters that lived near them. "by the way, ya got dat fat pipbuck the others were making a fuss all over."

I lifted my left leg, a wiggled it a bit, the pipbuck was still heavy, and made the leg to stiff to wiggle, so it just shaked a little instead. "yep, they got it all fixed too, I'm just waiting for them to set up the test chamber."

The old pony just eyed the pipbuck for a few seconds, stroking his beard. "I bet June gone and went and removed the combat program on da ting, she always dos." he nodded his head at his own words. "say, ya want to do some targets practice?"

Wait he was asking me to shoot a gun, it was not something I had ever done before, and the only gun I had ever seen fired was an old musket... Musket Ball, that's what his name was! so he wanted me to shoot a gun, sadly I didn't own any. "with what?" I knew I just made an idiot of myself as soon as I had said the words. I was in a room filled with guns, and he would know that I didn't have any on me.

Musket swiveled his head around before looking back at me. "good question, I'd sat we could shoot shit from a cat's ass, but aint got no cats, so let's start with thees guns."

I got to say that was one of the more creative ways to call me an idiot, so I ain't even mad. "sorry, I mean which one sould I start with?"

"take a look, and pick two. We can try em out in the range." He then pointed to another room with his hoof.

Right, pick two guns and try em out, easy enough. Starting with what was closes to me, I lifted with the levitation the boxy gun, the magical energy gun as he called it. the levitation was no good cor controlling the ting in the air, so I still had to manipulate it with my hooves so to get a closer look. I found one spot were I guessed that the ammunition would go, and turning it around some more, I eyed a peace of glass that I guessed was were the thing shot out the magical energy.

The gun was snatched from my hooves so quickly, I didn't even have time to be startled. "your a real igit aren't ya son! don't go looking down the barrel of a gun, not till ya know its got no ammo to shoot it it." Musket Ball gave me a stern look as he put the gun back into it's place. "unless ya like the idea of becoming a pile of ash."

"Uhh, sorry, I thought it was safe."

Musket raided an eyebrow, making me feel stupid again. "It's not safe, it's a gun."

I figured that the boxy weapon was not for me, and moved onto the other tables. The next three tables had pistols on them, the first two tables had pistols I had seen before, one was the kind that military ponies like to show, the other was the kind that I would see on sale anywhere that sold a gun. the third table on the other hoof had the kind of pistol that reminded me of some of the movies I would watch, where the hero would whip this kind of pistol out just in time to save the day. "mister Musket Ball, what's this one called." pointing at the movie pistol.

Musket Ball trotted over, giving me an annoyed look, but oddly smiled when he saw what I was pointing at. "that there is a classic, the .45 Auto Pistol, the Equestria's military was using it before the M.W.T. decided to switch to the 10mm pistol. An excellent gun for thous who remember what a pistols meant to be."

"And what's a pistol meant to be?"

"That being ta gun you use before getting into hoof to hoof combat. Son, you be a fool to think a pistol is in any right a fist choice gun. Ya pull this thing out just to get empty into what's attacking ya, and pay to Celestia that it is enough for your hovoes to finish the job." he looked back at the pistol a hoofed it into his belt, giving me a wink. "I think this will do, trust me."

so with the handgun decided, I was not going to argue with the old stallion, I moved onto the next batch of tables. This time it was a hole bunch of shotguns, some short barrel, others were pump-action, the kind I's see in movies, but nothing that catching my eyes. Now that I think about it, in the movies it was mostly unicorns that used the shotguns, the times when it was an earth pony using then, it was normally by battle saddle.

A sharp whistle from Musket ball caught my attention. "ya want to try anther early war weapon as well?"

Shrugging "Why not, what do you suggest?" the old stallion knew more then me on this, might as well follow his lead.

"A battle rifle, sure it's not your spray and pray that the M.W.T. gives to all our troops, but this girl is the best rifle to ever be made." he picked up a large rifle in his hooves, "This here is the best battle rifle ever made, and first to be used for battle saddles, the M1G."

I trotted it over as he hoofed it through one of his belts. "Are you sure, I've never fired any kind of gun before."

"trust me, ya fire diss, you will be throwing bit's at me to own it." Musket then pointed to the other rifle on his back with his hoof. it was the same kind of rife, but along the side it said, 'Well This Machine Kills Stripes' along the side. "diss was my grandsons when he fought in the war over ten years ago, got him though that mess, and back to his Mare." The old stallion beamed with pride.

"well I guess I now have to give it a shot." I gave Musket a smile.

He rolled his eyes and trotted of to the other room, I followed. The other room definitely was a shooting range, like the kind I'd see in the cop movies. it having six coves from were to shoot a gun, and had better ventilation then any room I had been in before. To my surprise Under Brush was there, she was cleaning a pump-action shotgun, and how she just floated it around just cemented my though of shotguns being a unicorn gun. Musket Ball whistled again, getting her attention, "Brush, you want to see a greenhorn soot a gun?"

Under Bush smirked. "do bears like tea party's?" she then put her shotgun down, and trotted over to us.

Musket Ball placed both guns in one of the coves, and waved me over. "now I'm going to show ya how to properly load these two, I'll just need to get some ammo first." the then trotted off to the side.

Looking at the guns, this time with my hoof, they were surprisingly heavy, and didn't shine like they did in the movies, the mettle was more black then silver. A soft laugh came from Under Brush as she walked next to me. "this will be fun, trust me. The old fool makes all his own parts, so the guns you got their are practically hoofed forged." I looked at the guns again, feeling impressed. "you know how Stable-Tec's catch phrase is built to last, well old Musket Ball here applied the same to his guns, you could probably smash through our surplus gun up in security, and still fire those." She shrugged, "Too bad Stable-Tec doesn't sell weapons, they make a killing." Under Brush laughed through thru her teeth, the smell of moonshine waffled a little off her breath. I had almost forgot he gives out moonshine.

Musket Ball pushed Underbrush back and out of the way, she found a nice seat not far from us. "now to load the pistol properly, keep your mouth on the bit, turn your head, and use both hooves to push in the magazine in, also have one hoof lower so you can use it to push the magazine the rest of the way in."

I followed his instructions, fumbling with the magazine the first few tines, but eventually after a good ten tries, I was getting the hoof of it, not that I was any good, but I was not dropping the magazine anymore. It all felt awkward for me to do, and my neck was quickly getting sore.

Musket then moved onto the M1G, but unlike with the pistol, it loaded from the top, and needed clips for loading. The rifle was also heavier then I thought it was going to be, and made me thing that this thing could be a damn good club. "now your going to want to watch out for your hooves to do this right, just keep one hoof on the loading trigger, put in the clip, and pushes it down with your other hoof." I did as he asked, using my mouth to put in a clip but as I pushed it down, my other hoof lost it's grip, and the hoof that was pushing in the ammo got a small bit of it sheared off. Both Musketh Ball, and Under Brush laughed. My next few tries were mush more successful, and didn't involve me loosing a small but of my hoof.

"I think that is well good enough, so put these on before shooting the thing off." he pointed at some earplugs, and over the head earmuffs, both Musket Ball, and Under Brush were already putting on their own.

First was the M1G, and this was quite awkward to even hold. I had to use the table to hold it up, and my hooves to am it. But once I had the target in my sights, it was easy to keep it still for me to line up a shot. When it pushed the tong trigger, I felt a shock wave from the gun, and a slight crack through the earplugs. letting go a breath I didn't know I was hold, I could feel my hooves shake a little, and my heart beat faster, I don't know why, but firing the rifle had sacred me, or exited me, I didn't know what I was feeling, but I didn't like it. I felt it was best to waited for the shaking to pass. When I felt better, I fired a few more shots, the rifle holding only eight at a time, I made each shot count. I was able to get four shots into the target on my first clip, and all into on the second.

.45 Auto pistol was next, the thing had a bit of a kick to it, but not the same as the M1G, but I didn't hit the target with any bullets from the first magazine. I did take my time with each seven shots of the magazine, but only nicked the target with the second magazine. With the third magazine I actually hit it, with three shots going in, two just a bit off, and the last two missing. I was given a fourth magazine, and I managed to get all seven shots on the target, but nothing that hit the red dot in the center. Overall I was ok with shooting it, and I might be able to see the fun in it, might.

After I had fired the forth magazine, Musket Ball tapped my on the shoulder to get my attention. He had taken off his ear protection, so I did the same. "now why don't we try and use the S.T.A.T.'s, but first let me see that pipbuck. I got to check and see if it even works on it." I hoofed over my left hoof, and he started to press a few buttons. "eyep, I thought so, Miss I don't make weapons removed the targeting part of your S.T.A.T.'s you can slow time for ya to think, but nothing else."

"so, no targeting from the pipbuck?" it was no big loss for me, I was not expecting to go fight in the war, or realy wanted to fight anyone in the first place.

Musket ball chuckled, "got a nice little work around for tat, just need to install a new targeting program, and I got a new one I've been testing out right here." he puled out what looked like a metal bar and plunged it into a port on my pipbuck. "this is the tactical movement and targeting program, dose the same thing as S.T.A.T.'s but also will help reload a gun, or help move your flank to a new position."

Now I was confused. "How in Tartarus dose it do that?"

"Well like how it helps you target and shoot your gun, making makes your body move all aromatic. It will do the same for reloading your gun, or moving short distances, just tell S.T.A.T.'s to do it, and it will do the rest." Musket Ball then pulled out the bar he had in my pipbuck. "try out the reloading."

It did sound cool, so I took hold of the M1G, a pressed the button to activate S.T.A.T.'s, stopping time. Now if I remember, the energy needed to use the targeting spell was called action points, or A.P. and the amount I had to use appeared in my vision along with targeting an enemy, of which, this did not happen. What I got was something called Action Turns, or A.T. and an option to act, move, or end. Not needing to move, I chose the option act, and now both the target I was shooting at, and Musket ball were highlighted, along with another option to attack, reload, or end. Selecting the reload I was taken back to the first three options, now with my A.T. sating that one was being used, and one more ready to use. The options also now had 'back' as something I could pick, but I chose end.

My body quickly moved, puling out a clip, pushing it in, and locking the chamber in a near fluid motion. I would feel impressed with myself if I was the one that did it, but the hole thing was inventory, for the short seconds I did not have control over my body.

Musket Ball chuckled again "Works like a charm don't you think. It's to bad that it never got passed development, normal S.T.A.T.'s worked well enough, and the pipbucks 3000's were all already out in the world."

"It said I only have two A.T. why that?"

"That's because it uses more power, but recharges a little better. I say it's a good trade off, the normal S.T.A.T. has ya just standing around after shooting your gun, open to any fool who could still shoot back. With this, you can shoot and jump for cover, or get to cover then shoot." Musket Ball then looked back down range. "Now try shooting the target again, with S.T.A.T.'s.

Putting back on our ear protection, I turned S.T.A.T.'s back on, our little chat was the time the pupbuck needed to recharge the spent A.T. so picking act again and then picking attack, I selected the targeting dummy's head, it giving me a %75 to hit. Doing the same thing with my second A.T. time then sped up as I felt my body take the shots, with both hitting their target, though not getting the red dot in the center.

Musket Ball gave me a little push on the shoulder, I let go of the rifle, and took off the ear protection. "easy as cake. Though be careful with the moment option, it can push you to move when you don't feel like you can, but it won't if your to hurt to do so."

"And I certainly hope he won't ever need to use it." Emerald Field was standing in the doorway, looking irritated. "you have doors Musket, close them when shooting, we can hear the gunshots through the lab." her eyes then looked at Under Brash, who was hiding her face with a bottle of what I could only guess was moonshine. "And you, didn't your brake ended over ten minutes ago, just because Brass Badge is out, dose not mean you can get lazy." She then looked at me, "and you, were ready to start testing, I just hope you weren't given any of that gut-rot, teleportation can be dizzying on it's own." with that she trotted out of sight.

Putting the rifle down, I gave the other two a smile. "I guess it's time to go."

"Eyep," Musket Ball stepped out of the way, and sat next to Under Brush. "Come back if ya want to shoot some more, ya might have the making of a trooper, but I think I can see the spark of a hunter."

"ahh, can you ask Emerald to not tell Zaan for me" Under Brush waved her hoof at me.

Stepping out of the shooting range, I could see that Emerald was waiting in the hallway. Before closing the door, I felt I needed to ask one more question. "So do bears actually like tea party's?"

Under Brushed laughed, "only with a little yellow pegasus"

I shrugged and closed the door, the answer was good enough for me.

__________________________

Footnote:

Tactical S.T.A.T.'s enabled. - Two execution strikes (E.S.) unlock.

E.S. - Neck Snap - in hoof to hoof combat, if Slowtrot catches and enemy unaware, he can perform this through S.T.A.T.'s using two A.T.

E.S. - Navy Buck - In hoof to hoof combat, Slowtrot can now perform a full Buck through S.T.A.T.'s using two A.T. This attack has a +%10 to critical chance, and a +%50 to critical damage.

Chapter 9 - The Future Now!

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 9 - The Future Now!

“A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.”

― Madeleine L'Engle

__________________________

"So why would June remove the targeting program?" the walk to the testing chamber with Emerald Fields was feeling a bit too quiet for me. I just hope I didn't do something to get on her bad side, I've heard that bad things can happen with teleportation.

Emerald sighed and glanced over to me. "It's because they were never meant to have a targeting program, that was a military add on that became standard. The pipbuck was originally meant to just be a personal terminal, which it still is, but with the E.F.S. and the S.A.T.S Making it a tool to help ponies kill other ponies. June doesn't like the idea of giving Equestria another weapon. Give another month or two, it won't be a surprise to see ever trooper, not in power armor, have a pipbuck to help them find and kill zebras."

Thinking about it, I knew a few ponies that would feel the same. I mean the war has gotten so bad, the idea of us bowing ourselves into the apocalypse feels like it could happen tomorrow. "then why is it standard? I mean it is cool and all, but I don't have a use for a targeting program."

"To tell the truth, I don't know. The spell space they use would have been better spent on things like that levitation spell, or even the teleportation spell were working on. My guess is that the military paid a ton for it, and the CEO's just left it in. At least Musket Ball's modified S.A.T.S's let's you run from a fight." Emerald Fields sounded a lot less upset than she did before.

"It doesn't sound like June would get along with Musket, with all the guns and all."

Emerald laughed "Not as much as you think. Their both being mountain ponies, so there is a little respect and understanding between them. June understand that the guns Musket makes are intended for protect. Monsters do live in the mountain, and any tool that can scare them off, mountain ponies will use. As for Musket Ball, he understands that June's kin were wronged by Equestria, an it's why she goes out of her way to not make any kind of weapons that Equestria can use."

"Wait, what do you mean Junes kin was wronged by Equestria?"

"Oh, Junes a Highlander." She said with a matter of fact tone. So I raised an eyebrow to let her know that did not know what a Highlander is. She got the message. "There's a small nation on the south Equestria border called the Highlands, though it's more of a collection of earth pony tribes ant never joined Equestrie. Well the Highlands happened to be sitting on an mountain of coal, and I mean a actual mountain. Now the Highlanders didn't have a need for the coal, so they let Equestria mine their land as long as they paid a tax. It was a fair deal, well fair at first. The coal barons found ways to get around paying the tax to the Highlanders, and as well ignored cleaning up the mess that the mining operation had made. When the coal was all gone, the Highlanders were lest with a giant landfill and no bits from what was taken from them. By that time the war with the zebras had been going on for a few years, so the Highlanders were just forgotten. That's why June doesn't want to make weapons for Equestria, the hole war was started over the same thing that left her home a mess."

Now that was heavy. "So what happened to the Highlanders? I mean currently that is."

Emerald sighed. "Their around. I heard that Stable-Tec tried to offer building them a stable, but it got turned down. Something about them making their own shelter. June called them a bunch of suborn fools."

We finally got to the end of the hallway, and Emerald smiled. "here we are. Now don't tell June about the new S.A.T.S program. Bad things can happen if a teleportation spell goes wrong." I gave here a confirming but worried nod, and she then pressed the button to open the door

The testing chamber looked a bit like one of the rooms where they had an apple orchard from Labs A, but without the plant life, and with normal stable lighting. The spacious room was mostly empty, except for two pads on ether side of the room, with many long cables stretched between them. A pare of big metal coils towered over side of each pad, which every now and then sparked electricity of of them. More cables snaked there way from the two pads, and to a line of terminals that the tech's were working at. Cloud Bank among the terminals, looking half asleep. June stood next to one of the pads, looking much better, but still looking like she need more sleep.

I also saw that they were all wearing thees big tinted glasses on, even Emerald Fields had just put a pare on when we entered the room.

June placed an apple on on one of the pads, and then quickly trotted to the other techs. The air filled with a buzz as the two pads came to life, sparking electrisity from the metal coils. A loud crack came from the first pad when a large bolt of electricity flashed between the two metal coils. The second pad then did the same, and between the two pads, the repeating cracks of electricity drown out any noise, and were almost blinding with their light. The rate of electricity cracks suddenly increased before a grate bolt of electricity flashed between the two pads. After that, the two pads slowly shunt down.

I had trouble seeing after all the bright flashes, the lines of the electric bolts lingering in my vision.

"Teleportation success!" yelled a nasally sounding tech.

June cleared her throat, getting the attention of the all the tech's. "Don't call it a success until we check the results. Some pony go check the apple."

One tech got out of their seat, and walked over to the second pad. Tilting their head, the pony sat down, and rubed their chin.

"So it it intact?" June said loudly.

The tech turned around. "It's an orange!" the tech lifted an orange up on their hooves, giving June a surge.

June face hoofed, "I don't even... let's try this again." the techs all went back to tapping at the terminal.

"Is turning apples into oranges thru teleportation normal? Because if it's normal, then I think I'll just skip all this." The idea of me not being me when I came out on the other side frightened me a little.

Emerald Fields snickered, "No, you just become a potted plant." my face twisted in shock as Emerald trotted off to June.

"That's not funny. Your joking right... right?" sighing, I trotted off after her.

So the possibility of becoming an orange or a potted plat was now making me realy rethink about all of this. Not that I didn't like the idea of helping them with the teleportation testing, the idea they have to use it is pure genius. The thing is, I like having my mane not be made of leaves.

"Not having second thoughts are we?" June puffed ate her cigaret after speaking.

how did she do that. I took a deep breath and raised my hoof, intent on letting her know about my concern. She cut me off with a cloud of smoke.

"Because you just saw us turn an apple into an orange after teleportation. When it sould have stayed a damn apple." A tech behind June slowly put down an an orange they were eating. Which made me a little more worried. "Now that's not going to happen to you, that's why were throwing apples in first. Once we have the spell calibrated and working properly, then we might teleport you." June took another puff of her cigaret. "right now, safety is our top priority."

I was still worried about the orange thing, but June did put me at ease for the most part. If they were going to make sure it all worked right, and tested out a bunch to know it worked right, then I might as well stick around. Though looking at the hole setup, mainly the metal coils and bolts of electricity, it reminded me of the classic Frankenpony movie. so if they asked me to put bolts on my neck, I'm out.

"we've got a terminal that we'll need to hook the pipbuck into." Emerald walked to a empty terminal at the end of the line of terminals. "it's over here."

Sitting at the terminal I found a pare of large tinted glasses, and quickly put them on. I had to admit, tinted glasses did make me feel I was a little cool. From my seat I had a good view of the teleportation testing, as they put another apple on the first pad. The start up of the the pads was the same as before, but with the tinted glasses on, it didn't hurt my eyes as much. The sound from the pads still drowned out everything else. A tech went over and showed what appeared on pad two, it was an apple, but without it's red skin on.

Now that scared me more then the becoming an orange.

"Awesome, we can patient this, right?" one of the tech's in the terminal line spoke up. "peal your fruit with science!" the pony was a bit too exited over it, but it did sound like a cool idea.

June had face hoofed again. "make a note of it, and we will look into it after we ensure that there are ponies we can sell it to."

With a click, Emerald had my pipbuck plunged into the terminal. "right, once we have the teleportation pads all properly calibrated, we just have to do the same with the pipbuck, so just sit tight." She plugged her own pipbuck into the terminal, and pulled herself a seat with her magic. "it's all so exiting, you will be the first non unicorn to perform teleportation if this is a success. Well it's going to be by pipbuck, but small details."

It was exiting, realy exiting. Also, It was becoming terrifying. I could be the fist non unicorn to perform teleportation, just without my skin coming with me. Firing the M1G the first time might have thrown my emotions a bit out of whack for a moment, but the idea of teleportation was sending my emotions to the moon. I was also starting to feel itchy from worry.

The next test they decided to use a banana, puling it from the bunch. It did disappear from pad one, but did not reappear on pad two. What the banana did do was return to it's bunch, but as green goo. I added green goo to the list of how teleportation could kill me.

A few more tests were less successful, with two attempts not doing anything at all, one giving the apple wings, and another test only sending half of the apple to pad two.

After that last test, I turned to Emerald, with a question I hoped she could answer "How in Tartarus do you unicorns even teleport with killing themselves?"

Clearing her throat laughing. "half of teleportation is about visualization, the other half is about feeling with your magic. It talks a lot of practice to get it just right, and some unicorns pick up on it better then others, but rarely do any of them move more then a few hoof steps. But to answer you question, most of the time a unicorn casts a shield spell at the same time, that's what gives it the flash of light, and helps them take other ponies with them. So when a unicorn teleports, they are actually teleporting the space around them, and then riding along. The few unicorns who are adapt at this, they can ether cast the shield spell around just there body, or extend the shield to take many others with them."

That was a lot of info for me to take in. "so why is it not working for the teleportation pads?" the thousand an one bit question, and the explanation of why this is going to kill me.

"That's because we don't have any unicorns that are adept at teleportation to work with. And even if we did have the unicorn that could help, traditional teleportation dose not work for what we need." Emerald sighed once again. "what were trying to do is make a teleportation network. It's something that traditional magic can't do, which means that we're creating a high level spell from scratch."

Rubbing my chin, I now had one more question. "Okay, your not using normal teleportation, so then what kind of teleportation are you using?"

Emerald took a deep breath. "Were calling it Slip Jumping. It's actually the combination of magic portals with teleportation. We make a micro portal connecting two places together, and trough teleportation, have the pony switch places with another spot on the other side. This means for teleportation, we only need the magic power to move a pony a few hoof steps, and not have to worry about fusing them to the ground. That's something we can make a pipbuck attachment for. As for the portals, the ponies in Labs D are working on that. They have a much bigger staff working on it, so I'd put my bits that they are long finished by now, and just stress testing the spell."

I was actually feeling a lot calmer now, and could not thing of any more question. "thanks for explaining it to me."

"Think nothing of it."

The testing continued on, with a s few near successes. One apple cached fire, and another froze. After a few more tests, the apple came out normal, and each test after that the apple teleported to pad two without any problems. The tech's then teleported the apple from pad two to pad one. They bounced the apple around a few more times from one pad to the other. They even put an orange on the opposite pad of the one the apple was on, and for the next few teleports the fruit switched places.

"it's all calibrated." Cloud Bank's spoke up, his voice was a bit strained, showing his need for sleep taking over. "we can start the live testing at any time."

June walked up to the row of terminals, her eyes scanning all the tech's, as well as me. "Now everypony, I know you all have lost lots of sleep over this." Cloud Bank groaned at the sentence. "but from here on we take a true step forward. What we do right now will ensure that many more lives can be saves, and that a better future can come from the ashes of the world we left behind." She then puffed at her cigaret. "so I tell you this once, and only once. Don't fuck this up, if Slowtrot dies, then we are up shit creek without a paddle."

the room was silent, nothing but the hum of the terminals.

June cleared her throat. "Now do what you do best, and we can have cake when this is a success." all the techs quickly went back at tapping at their terminals.

"I think June probably needed more sleep." Emerald gave a weak smile, and pressed a button on the terminal my pipbuck was connected to. "it sould just take a few seconds for the pipbuck to synchronized with the teleportation pads. After that you can take part in the testing."

"Is there a way to take part in the testing with out, well, needing a pony to be teleported?"

Emerald gave me a look, I think it was one of concern, "We need some pony to have a pipbuck on for us to get any conclusive data, and sadly the pipbuck you have on is the only one that can handled the magical stress." She then unplugged my pipbuck from the terminal. "we just need you to be teleported a few times, and then we will have the data we need. As you can see, with the pads calibrated, you will be perfectly safe." Emerald then waved to June, who then gave her a nod. "So chin up, we would not do this unless it's safe."

This time I sighed. "your right. I'm already here, so I can't back out now."

Getting out of the seat, I trotted over to June. She was looking at her pipbuck, which was plugged into pad one. Up close, the pad it looked even more like out of a fictional movie, making the hares on my back raise up a bit.

"We just need you to stand on Teleportation point one." I assumed she was talking about pad one. "don't worry about doing anything once your on it, we have your pipbuck set to automatically activate once the systems ready for teleportation." taking a quick look over at me, she hoofed over a pair of earplugs. "Also put these on, for your on sanity."

I took the earplugs eagerly, with how loud it was from the terminals, I was glad to get some protection from it. "So has any pony been teleported thru this?" I walked over onto the pad, and June fallowed me.

"We had a few ponies do it, and no, nothing bad happened to them. What you will be doing is having your pipbuck teleport you. It's going to act like a manically unicorn horn, and zap you to the other pad." June then patted me on the shoulder, and trotted off to the line of terminals.

I was now filled with more questions now, but as the fist crack of electricity went off, I quickly shoved the earplugs in. Looking back at the the others, Emerald was holding up a sign. 'stay on the pad' it said. she lifted up another sign, 'It could get messy if you don't.'

Well, I'm now committed to the mistake, so is my life right now.

I could feel the electricity all around me, and not one hair on me did not feel like jumping off my skin. The tinted glasses and earplugs did help, but being on the pad were the electric bolts were going off, I was blind and deaf to everything.

* * *

Long ago there was a grand black dragon who watched over the night sky. The dragon was nether feared nor worshiped. Nor did the dragon wished to be feared or be worshiped. For to this dragon, the night itself was a grand treasure it protected, and all under the night sky were shining jewels he watched over.

* * *

The bolts of electricity died down, reveling every pony to now be on the other side of the room... that or it worked, and I just teleported! Checking myself over, I was not an orange, and I still had my skin on with all my fur. "I think you did it!" I waved my hoof at them, as my fear melted away.

June waved back, and Emerald lifted up another sign for me to read. 'stay in, a few more and were done.'

"Right!" I put my hoof back down. At this point, if there was anything that could make this go wrong, it was me getting to exited and kicking something sensitive.

The crack of electricity came back, and everything vanished in the harsh light and sound.

* * *

As the Dragon diligently oversaw the night for hundreds of year, he witnessed many wonders of the lands, and became a keeper of secrets of it's inhabitants. As time went on, a shadow became envious of the dragons grate power and knowledge. Invading the Dragons dreams as it slept, the shadow would wiper about how the sun is the greatest jewel that he would never have.

* * *

Once the light faded, I could see that again I was still me. Looking over to the others, Cloud Bank had moved to the floor, and from my best guess, sleep had finally won out.

The pad came to life, and everything vanished once more.

* * *

No longer able to hold back his envy, the shadow offered the dragon the power to take the sun for himself. By the time the dragon realized he had been tricked, the shadow taken over the dragons body. With the dragons power, and knowledge, the shadow twisted the day into another night. Not only did the shadow hide away the sun, but she also jealousy horded the light of knowledge form all in the lands.

* * *

Coming out of the teleportation this time made me feel a little lightheaded. "how many more times do I need to do this?"

Emerald lifted up another sign 'just a few more'

that answer didn't make me feel all that comfortable, but I had to trust them.

* * *

Struck down by the dragons brother, the shadow escaped her host, along with all of her stolen knowledge. The sun returned to the world, but the diligent guardian of night did not. Ever more powerful, the shadow plagued the dreams of thous with grate knowledge as a big black dragon. Intent on stealing their secrets as they futility hid in fear of her in their own dreams.

* * *

The lightheaded feeling was more pronounced, and it took a little longer for my eyes to focuses. "Can we stop for a minute, I'm not feeling all that grate"

Emerald put up another sign. 'come back over here'

Trotting off the Teleportation pad, I felt a little better as I took out the earplugs, placing them on the nearby table.

June puffed at another cigarette "so what's wrong?" a bit of smoke left her mouth as she talked.

"I was just feeling a little light headed with the last two teleportation."

"that's all, well it's good that you let us know. The data we got from the four jumps alone is excellent. Two jumps more and we sould have all the data we need. Are you up for that?"

I had come this far, so two jumps seemed reasonable. "I think I am. I just needed to catch my breath, figuratively I mean."

Trotting back to the teleportation pad, I looked back to see Emerald following me. "You almost forgot these." the earplugs were floating in her magic.

"Thanks." Putting them on, I gave her a nod.

Nodding back Emerald trotted back to the safety of the terminals.

* * *

Long ago, their was a wise old Unicorn. He had become known throughout the land as the greatest spell caster, and would spread the light of knowledge to all he met. The shadow eventually learned of this Unicorn, and once more felt envy. Seeking him out to steal all that he knew, the shadow was relentless.

* * *

so the thing about feeling better, it didn't happen. Dots appeared in my vision that slowly disappeared.

Emerald had lifted another sign 'feeling okay?'

"I'm fine, I can do one more Jump" I think.

* * *

The Unicorn proved to be unfazed by the shadows assaults in his dreams, mocking each attempt she made. So the shadow came for the Unicorn in his waking hours of the night, taking the form of a black mare. But this left the Shadow vulnerable, and when she came close to the old Unicorn, an Alicorn of brilliant light descended upon the shadow. Unable to escape, the Alicorn released its wrath upon the shadow, striping the shadow of all her power, and imprisoning her to the dark depths of Tartarus.

* * *

Coming out the the teleportation felt worse then it had before. My lightheaded feeling was dizzying, and I could barely see. Trying to step off of the pad only resulted in tripping over my own hooves. Everything went dark.

__________________________

Light bathed the area around me, and the sound of wind trough trees sooth my worried mind. I was sitting at a long table wooden table, a plate of salad sat before me. The salad was vibrant with different color, but mainly a rich greens. Across from me was a pretty earthpony mare, she had a faded blue/gray coat, and a platinum blond main.

"Thorn Roseland" came off my lips. I could only guess that was her name, and a feeling of dread from my stomach told me that I did not like her.

Thorn pushed a pistol across the table over at me. "I trust you know what to do this this."

I didn't take the pistol. "Don't think I do." I pushed it back to her.

Thorn grind at me. "Oh, I know you do. But if you insist, I can give you a demonstration." She picked up the pistol in her mouth, and aimed it at me. Time seemed to slow down as she fired, the bullet slowly flying through the air at me. no matter how much I tried I could not move. Thorn put the pistol down, moving at normal speed. "you kill with it." Thorn smiled as the bulled slowly burrowed into my skull.

__________________________

My eyes shot open, and saw that looking back at me was Candy Pop. I opened my mouth, but she put a hoof over it, and one over hers own. "shhh."

"In my best opinion, you sould get that thing off of him as soon as you can. Even if you did get rid of all the harmfully spells, that pipbuck is still killing him." the accent I recognized belonged to Doctor Lifebeat. "It was hard to tell at first with how much garbage was in that thing, but now I can clearly detect that the pipbuck is increasing the stress on his body. If you push the thing any farther, Slowtrot here is going to have a brain aneurysm."

"Agreed, I can't believe I missed that. I'm having the key made as soon as possible." it was June's voice, sounding a bit rough. "whoever modified 2600 sould be arrested, to incidentally make it slowly kill it's user. makes me sick."

"well the good news is that he will be fine as long as you don't have that pipbuck use any high level magic. But like I said, sooner it's off of him the better." I could hear hoof steps slowly come closer to me. "Candy Pop, what's Slowtrots condition?"

Releasing her hooves, she the smiled. "He just woke up!"

slowly getting up, I looked around. The medical room was the same as it was the last two times I was here.

Lifebeat glanced over at me. "Good, good. Now Slowtrot, if any more ponies ask you to do some experimentation, just tell them no. I'm not in the profession of letting my patients getting themselves hurt just after I finished treating them."

"Don't worry doctor, I'm feeling like sitting the rest of this out." having this thing almost kill me once was enough, and now that I know it is still trying to kill me. The soon it is off, the better.

"Now then, I'll have Candy here escort you back to your room. You will stay in residential until that pipbuck is removed." Lifebeat looked into my eyes before nodding to himself, and walked off to his office.

Getting off of the bed, I was once again careful to not fall off of it. June had walked over to me, looking a bit worried. "So how did the testing go, did you get the data?" I was worried that everything might have gone wrong.

"yes we did, but not without every pony getting scared half to death." June sighed, sound a bit revealed as she spoke "it's going to take some time, but with that data we can start making the attachment. I'll make sure that you are properly compensated for your participation. Now go enjoy yourself in residential, we sould have the key for the pipbuck ready by tomorrow morning."

"well I'm just glad it was all a successes, and well that I'm not dead." I smiled a little, it was one of those relived like of smiles.

"true, now you sould get going. We will come to you when the key is done." June pulled out a pack of cigarettes, but put them away when Lifebeat gave her a look.

Candy Pop trotted over to the door. "Let's go Slowtrot, I got a rematch at the arcade, and it will be rude to them waiting."

I shrugged and followed her. Thinking about it, with the testing all over, and with me being free from this pipbuck soon, I can enjoy some time at the beach before going home. I never had been to Marewaii Islands before, so it couldn't hurt to ask if I could stick around at the resort for a few days. Soak up some sun, have some drinks, maybe fine a nice mare who might find me interesting. I heard that Stable-Tec employees are real popular right now.

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Footnote: (no new updates)

Chapter 10 - Deep Regrets

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 10 - Deep Regrets

“Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know”
― Bertrand Russell

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During our short walk and an elevator ride, Candy Pop talking about some of the medical procedures she learned from Doctor Lifebeat. I had given up thinking it was weird, and and chose to enjoy learning about things I never want to witness myself. As it turns out, despite how safe the R&D is, a lot of ponies get badly hurt down here, and Labs C had a hole medical area ready for the worst injury's. Lifebeat and Candy Pop were in Lab B as a first response team, and focuses more on stabilizing a badly hurt pony before sending them to Labs C.

"And because of that, any kind of grande is now bad from the stable." Candy Pop opened the door to the atrium. Fortunately this time it was only filled with a few colts and fillies. Most of them were older then the mob that had climbed all over me yesterday, and were more concentrated around the arcade. "Later Slowtrot, I got to show the little ponies that not all of us adults suck at arcade games."

I watched, Candy Pop trotted off to the arcade with a bounce to her step. Looking around, not much else going on in the atrium. Their was a pony reading in the lounge, and two other ponies had just left one of the sports rooms on the second floor. The round window to the overmares office overlooked the atrium, the dark window reminding me of Phobetor's request.

Looking in the arcade, the small crowd of foals had gathered around the arcade machine that Candy Pop was on. It was the fighting game I saw last night, a filly playing agents Candy stood on a stool just to reach the controls properly. Candy was playing as light gray pegasus mare that moves awkwardly even when standing still, and had a muffin on her head. The filly was playing as a yellow earthpony mare, the character reminding me of farm ponies with her big tan hat.

The match ended quickly, with Candy showing no mercy. The gray pegasus character, dodging most attacks, and landing long combos. The pegasus attacks were weak, but Candy's opponent only managed to get two strong hits in, with the pagasus seemingly dancing around on the screen. The next opponent was a colt, who picked a purple unicorn for his fighter. Candy had a flawless victory. The next colt had better luck with a blue pegusus, but Candy still won with half her characters heath intact.

Feeling that it was better to leave before I was her next victim, I trotted out of sight of the arcade. It was not that I didn't want to play the game, I just didn't want to play it and be crushed in less then a minute. It's what I didn't like about playing fighting games in a arcade, some other pony always had to come in and waist my bit by crushing me like the newbie I was. If I wanted to play the game, I would have to wait until Candy Pop was finished, and the foals were off doing something else.

Looking back up at the overmares window, i figured that picking up whatever Phobetor would be a good way to pass the time.

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The hallway to the overmares office, though well lit, made me feel uneasy. I could only guess it was because of how quiet everything was on my way there. Most of the ponies here must work in the Labs, so residential probably emptied out during thees hours.

What made my uneasiness worse was that Phobetor was waiting for me in front of the overmares office. If it was not for her lab barding, her pitch black mane and cote would have made her look like a shadow in the hallway. Her golden eyes looked over at me with an impatient stare, reminding me of a few employers I had that were dissatisfied with how fast I could work at times.

"good, good. It's about time you to show up." Phobetor spoke, but yet it seemed that her mouth didn't move. "Now we can get to business."

"If you were going to be here, then why have me come at all?" something seemed more then just strange about the mare, but I could not put my hoof on it. "And what is it that you needed me to pick up?"

Phobetor looked back at the door. "If I told you, I would ruin the surprise. And if I ruin the surprise, than it would be no fun at all."

Yep, this mare was on the crazy train, it was just a question of if she was at the caboose, or the engine. Not wanting to have a crazy mare be in any way upset with me when I was still stuck down here, I felt it was best to just do as she said. What ever she wanted, it couldn't do much harm, and this stable is full of professional. walking up to the door, I pressed the button to open it, it opening with a soft hiss, and not the same buzz as before.

"Oh Healing Herbs, you mustn't be so forgetful in locking your door." Phobetor's voice had a slight giggle to it. "Now lets go, this will only be a moment." the sound of her hoof steps seemed to be nonexistent as she walked into the dark room.

Stepping in myself, things didn't look any different then from the last time I was here. The only big difference was that Healing Herbs was not here sleeping at her desk, and three empty soda bottles were laying on the desk.

A large terminal stood behind the desk along the wall, it's four monitors were on, but had nothing on their screen. it gave off a green glow from the screen, giving the room an eerie feeling to it. Phobetor trotted to it, beckoning me to follow with her hoof.

Closer, the large terminal looked quite imposing, unlike Junes terminal, that looked the kind a super smart ponies would have. The overmares terminal had a more command and control feel to it. It made me wonder if there was cameras everywhere for her to observe everything. "So... where is this thing you want, you did say I would know it when I see it." I gave the room a quick glance, but saw nothing that screamed crazy mare. "but I don't think I see it."

Phobetor pointed her hoof at the terminal. "It's inside this. You just need to hook up your pipbuck to it, and I'll do the rest of the work."

Finding a cable already connected the terminal, I placed my pipbuck hoof near it. "If it turns out that this something that we souldn't be doing, I'm yanking this out on the spot." this hole request was realy not sitting right with me, but I was sure if this was wrong, at least the others would hear me out. "Ironbuck, plug the cable into the the pipbuck."

A soft green glow enveloped the cable, and opened the panned on the upper part of the pipbuck. Connecting the pipbuck to the terminal, the magic faded off.

"Now mister Slowtrot, simpleton Slowtrot. You will do no such thing. And do you want to know why you will not?" Phobetor's voice took a sharp irritated turn. Not liking her tone, I pull my leg away from the terminal, but found myself unable to move, not even able to respond, or blink. "That's because I will it. Just like how I can control how much you remember. And how much you forget." she paused for a moment to grin. "How amazing are pipbucks, so useful, so full of little secrets. Did you know that you can tap into the E.F.S. of another pipbuck, actually see the world through another eyes. Same with the medical program, being able to feel everything they feel. But the one thing they can't do is get right into their thoughts... except for the one on your leg." Phobetor put herself nose to nose with me. "With that pipbuck, I can get right in. No need to fuss around with dreams, or to whisper sweet lies. I can just dive on in and take what I want."

The memory's flooded back in, Phobetor's true form now fresh in my mind, and fueled how helpless I felt. the stillness of my body was frightening, feeling the opposite of when I was stuck in Thorn's memory. I had no control, but this time I was not moving. But why? Why did she have me come all the way here on my own if she had such control?

Phobetor scrunched her nose "it's because I don't wish for your body, unworthy for one such as I." mind reading, I hate it already. But still, why not just turn me into a puppet. Phobetor already has the power over me, unless she she can only stop me from moving. "The prize goes to the simpleton. yes, I can only stop you from moving, for now. But it matters not, once the deal is done, you will be gone from here. And befor you ask,

The one of Sweetie Belle's songs came from the terminal, but unable to see why, all I could look at was Phobetor irritating grin. She siged, waving a hoof in front of my unmoving eyes. "I am, if anything, fair. For your troubles, I'll let you witness the little secret you just recovered for me." I found my head free from Phobetor's control, but to only have it lock up again when I looked up at the monitors. For what it was worth, she left be the ability you move my eyes, and blink. So count small blessings.

The four motors had the Stable-Tec logo then each. The music sounding much different then on the radio, it feeling sadder then normal. Near the end of the song the images on the motors cut out, replaced by one big Stable-Tec logo, only to cut out again to show the image of Sweetie Belle in a plain looking room.

"That's enough Sweetie Belle, I got the camera working." the voice had faint a farmer pony ascent to it. It sounded cute, if also a bit worn out.

"Are you sure about this Apple Bloom, it's not like it will actually happen." thru the green of the terminal monitors, I could still see that Sweetie Belle looked like she had been crying. Her light cote having dark linse under her eyes.

A second mare walked onto screen, an earthpony in a business suit. I felt it was safe to amuse that she was Apple Bloom. "If things don't end as bad as we think it will, then no it won't. But everything is moving to darn fast, so I have ta do this. Can't leave everything to chance Sweetie. That, and if I leave it for Scootaloo, It will... I just have to do it now."

Sweetie Belle hugged Apple Bloom, the hug went on for a few long seconds before she broke of and walked off screen. Apple Bloom still facing away from the screen took a deep breath. I could see that she was holding a hoof up chest high, and extended the hoof as she exhaled. Turning around, she had a calm and composed look, pretty even, but the bags under were easy to see. I could only guess that Apple Bloom must have not been sleeping well before she recorded this.

"Healing Herbs, If your watching this video, then... then omega level protocol is enacted, and I'm dead. You're now the official overmare of the R&D Stable." she paused to take another deep breath. "But you don't need a video for me to explain this to you, and that's not why I'm leaving this for you. This video is my last will... and also a confession to my crimes." Apple Bloom voice quiver a bit. "You see, I fucked up, I fucked up just as badly as ma sister, as bad as Pinky, as Rarity, and as Twilight." She took another moment to take another deep breath. "And now, I'm leaving you to clean up our mistakes, and that's even more fucked up. I probably just got what I had coming to me."

Apple Bloom spent a moment recomposing herself, slowly taking deep breaths, and long exhales. "To explain. Not all of the stables were made to simply save ponies. No, actually most of the stables are going to fail, and it's my fault for letting it happen. You see, we got it in our heads that we could not only just save ponies, but have it so that better ponies would come out of the stables generations later. So much precious time that could have gone into helping a stable survive better, went into stupid halfhearted philological study's. And that's just the lucky ones. We also made stables that will intentionally fail. Most of those ones will last at most fifty years before things turn bad, a few have ten years at best."

The mare puled out a small box with an antenna on it, and pressed down on a button. The screens flickered and switched to a map of Equestria. "This is were the R&D Stable comes in." many little boxes appeared on the map, each one having a number next to it. "what I'm... What I was planing to do was to fix this mistake. On this file is the location to every stable in and outside of Equestria, along with the passwords to all the doors. I also included a list of stables that will be a top priority for help, with the information on how the stables themselves will fail. The Stables that were set up for basic social engineering will be lower on the list, along with stables that are serving there original purpose."

The screen changed to a map of an island. A small square on the map had 'R&D' next to it, along with two other squares on the map, one listed as 'H1' and the other as 'H2'. "the reason I picked the Marewaii Islands to do this, is because other then the main island, the rest of the islands will be a low priority for any bombing from the zebras. And to make this effort even possible from here, I've had the company build two underground hangers. Both the hangers already have an airship stored in them, along with a full crew living in there. The hangers themselves can be used as stables, and with help from R&D, the hangers sould be able to support a fair sized population. So if possible, direct any survivors on the island to the hangers."

The video cut back to stoic looking Apple Bloom, though it looked like her mascara was starting to run. "I'm sorry to leave you with this burden. And I'm sure you will come to hate what I have done... and what I allowed to happen. The stables were meant to save ponies, but I let a stupid idea take over. I turned the stables into something that will only kill more ponies then we could have saved. But you can at least correct the mistakes, so please save as many ponies as you can, save them from what I doomed them too."

Apple Bloom stopped to take another deep breath. Her exhale was more of a deep sigh. "Sweetie Belle, turn off the camera." the image on the screen shook a bit, but it still continued.

Apple Bloom turned to the side, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, but a ball came flying out and bounced off Apple Bloom head. "I though you said you were going to quit smoking!" Sweetie Belle voice was loud through the terminal.

"I only said I was going to quit because I thought I was..." the video cut out to the large Stable-Tec logo for a few seconds before the monitors faded back to a dull green with the text 'File Deleted' scrolling across.

My body suddenly dropped to the floor. It felt good to move again, if only a little. Pushing myself back up on my hooves, I looked over at Phobetor. She was covering her mouth with a hoof, giggling. The giggling itself suddenly burst out into full on laughter.

Unplugging myself from the terminal, I saw that my pipbuck was on the data screen, listing a bunch of new files on it. It didn't take a genius to understand that anything on the terminal was now on my pipbuck.

Phobetor's laughter came to an abrupt end. "oh this is perfect, just too perfect. I was expecting there to be a dirty little secret, or two. But the keys to every stable, and two airships to get to them, it's all too perfect." She looked over at me, a foreboding grin on her face. "Now don't think about deleting anything from pipbuck." she laughed again. "Oh not that you will remember about it, not until that pipbuck is taken off your leg. That of coarse is only if you remember anything about this at all. And if you do, you will be long out of this stable, to far way to ever bother me again" Phobetor motioned to the door with her hoof. "now begone, I free you of my service."

Phobetor vanished before my eyes, becoming part of the darkness, and answering the question to how see seemed to appear and disperser out of nowhere. Seeing that there was nothing left for me to do, I did the only thing I could do, I left the overmares office, feeling defeated and powerless.

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Stepping into the atrium, I couldn't help but feel that I was forgetting something important.

Candy Pop was no longer in the arcade, but many of the foals were still playing the fighting game. So I decided to give up the idea of playing it right now. some of the younger foals were also here, though they didn't seem as energetic as they were yesterday, and fortunately were in less of a mobbing mood.

"Hay hay, mister iron pony!" the squeakily voice sounded a bit familiar. Looking over, I sat a striped unicorn filly trotting over to me. "Mister iron pony over here." she ran in a circles before dashing to the lounge. I felt that I had nothing better to do, so I followed.

In the lounge sat Under Brush and Zaan. The filly, remembering her name was Hydrangea, rested her hooves on her fathers head.

"Slowtrot, you have such good timing. Come sit." Zaan's friendly demeanor was hard to say no to. I realy makes me wonder why Equestria was so dead set on hating zebras.

Sitting across from the family, I could see that Under brush was taking a sip from an A Lab Soda. It looked like self punishment for drinking that moonshine in the middle of the day. "So I'm guessing you already heard about the pipbuck?"

Zaan sighed. "The researchers do have loos lips. It might be why this stable is in the middle of the western ocean. Less likely for an agent from the Solaris company to get to any of the researchers... oh, Solaris is a rival company. They've some success. But from what I've heard, what they make tends to be a catastrophic failure most of the time." Zaan chuckled to himself, and looked over to Under Brush. "Dear, you remember that vacuum you bought from them, the one with the radio in it."

Under Brush groaned and shook her head. "yes, and I member how it blew a hole in the wall. What were they thinking selling that thing as a vacuum."

"What! do we still have it, do we, do we, do we?" Hydrangea had jumped of her father, and was bounding on the couch in excitement.

Hydrangea found herself suspended in Under Brush's magic to stop her from jump on the couch anymore. "No, it got taken back to that company. It was a realy bad idea to give lonely housewives a sonic weapon in the shape of vacuum. Poor Mister Green Sprout, he never saw it coming." placing her filly gently back onto the couch, Hydrangea had a bit of a confused look on her face. "ehh, you will understand when your older."

Well it was good to know to not buy from Solaris, unless I want a weapon that was not made to be a weapon. "ah... killer vacuums aside, what's the likelihood of getting to stick around for a few days... on the the beach I mean?"

"I wouldn't worry about that. The company likes to keep there image as clean as possible. So expect a hole week of sun, sand, and free drinks. There will be some papers for you to sign. The normal disclosure form kind of thing. But other then that, you will have a good time before going home." Zaan's voice had a chuckle to it.

"That, that actually sounds better then I thought it was going to be." A hole week, plus the pay June promise that Stable-Tec would give me over the testing. It sould at least keep me going until next year. Then I can get back to doing jobs that will eventually fire me because I suck at them. It was a sad notion that the best paying job I had was being a test subject, and I did it for less then a week.

"So your leaving Slowtrot?" Hydrangea was giving me the sad eyes. I've seen them before, but mostly at other ponies when foal wanted something. "but you only got here." oh my heart, if I had a filly like her, I don't think I could say no to anything she would asked me to do.

I gently ruffled her main. "Sorry, but this is not were I belong. But I might be around for a week, so if you want to hang out, you have to as your parents to see if it's possible." I looked up at Zaan and Under Brush. Zaan looked away, and Under Brush smiled.

Hydrangea turned around, looking at her parents with the same watery eyes. Under Brush seemed less fazed by it the Zaan was.

Under Brush winked at her filly. "Were going to be a too busy for the next week. But I know Candy Pop and Prancer Dancer are free. We can talk to them about taking you to the beach. Maybe you can take some of your friends as well."

The energetic filly jumped to her mother, giving her a big hug. "Thank you, your the best mom ever!"

Now I didn't like the idea of babysitting a bunch of foals, but I felt like nothing but good could come of it. That and I probably had a hole week to enjoy myself, so one day looking after a few foals didn't sound so bad.

Hydrangea jumped off her mother and then over to me, her eyes still wide. I didn't know what she was going to ask me, but I knew she was going to ask something, and I would be compelled to answer it. To make matters worse, tiny hooves had climbed onto my back, and jumped over my head with a flutter sound. A little pegasus filly softly fluttered onto the cushion next to me. Quick looking around, I had had found myself surrounded by foals. They had me perfectly trapped.

Waving at the other foals to settle down, Hydrangea had taken control of the group. "So mister Slowtrot. Because you will be leaving, can you tell use how you got you cutie mark? Are you talented at riddles, you must be a quiz-mater or something, right?"

I looked over to Zaan, but he was chuckling again. I was on my own in the small crowd of foals. "Well it's nothing exiting. I bet you will find it boring,"

The foals looked at each other, and then back at me with a skeptical look. There was not way out of this. Not without looking like the bad stallion. I took a deep breath, knowing that all their little eyes were on me. "Well if you insist. I got my cutie mark because of one gloomy day at school. Everypony was unhappy because our teacher was out sick for the week, and the substitute teacher just gave us a big load of busywork to do until he recovered. It was all simple stuff, but sadly I'm not that smart of a pony, nor was was I that quick with that kind of work. So I new I would jut fall behind everypony, even if I knew how to do all the work. Because of that I knew I had to think of a way to get out of the busy work, or my fellow classmates would leave me behind. So I went about thinking on a solution, waling around the school grounds a few times before coming up with an idea."

Hydrangea jumped up, holding a hoof in the air. "Did you think up a devious plot to get out of the work, did you steal all the answers all super spy like?"

I even chucked a bit at that. "no, thugh that might have been fun. After spending some time thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that I knew no way around the problem myself. But I did know some pony that would. So I went to my teachers house, to ask him. The old stallion was both worried that I had come around when he was still ill, but also happy that I had visited him. I was full and well expecting him to tell me that I had to do the busywork. What he did do was give me one of his books, and a note that exempting me from doing the busywork as long as I was reading that book. The stallion new I didn't like reading, words get a bit mixed up when try, so I felt annoyed about his solution"

"Oh, what book was it, I bet it was a dictionary." A little colt had squeaked "Our teacher dose that whenever we try to get out of doing homework."

I waved my hoof for him to sit back down. "Well the book he gave me was Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet."

One of the other foals jumped up, "I've read that one!" she had a had a prideful looking grin on her face

"Pffff, no you didn't, ya ma read it to you." another foal had chimed in, stealing the grin form the other foals face.

Clearing my throat to get there attention. "So I gave it a shot, and the substitute teacher didn't realy care what I did as long as I was occupied. I had only gotten half way thru chapter two by the time out teacher returned." it took me four days to get that far, not that I would tell anypony that. "But when he got back, he told me that I wouldn't get a pass for the week unless I told him what I learned from the book. Sadly I couldn't think of anything I had learned from it. So not wanting to look stupid, I asked him if I can finish the book first, then I would have an answer."

"so is that when you got your cutie mark?"

"well no, but he did agree to let me borrow the book until I was finished. So I spent two weeks reading the book, and walking around thinking about an answer. When I did return the book, I had two answers ready. My first answer was that I learned that he had tricked me into reading a book. The second was that that even if I have a hard time reading a book, it can still be fun if it was a good book. Well the stallion just laughed and gave me the book Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone to read next. Now I still don't like reading books that much, but a good book, I'll give it a try."

"What the hay! When did you get your cutie mark?" Hydrangea pointed her hoof at me, looking a bit irritated.

I just shrugged. "It happened in the second week when I was reading the first book. I didn't even know it had appeared until another foal pointed it out. I probably had it for a days before knowing it was there."

"but then what dose it mean, what's your talent?" Hydrangea seemed frustrated at my answer.

"Well It represents giving things a long thought. About not rushing in and jumping to conclusions. Taking things slow and steady so you come to the right answer, or at least the knowledge that you only have the wrong answer."

Most of the foals had stop to take thinking positions for a moment. Hydrangea was fist of them to brake the pose, jumping off the couch. "Last one to the dance floor is IT!" she galloped to the Dance room across the atrium. The rest of the foals became a stamped, chasing after her.

Zaan burst into laughter at the sight. "Looks like that last bit of your your story went over her head Slowtrot. The last thing that filly knows how to do is slow down."

I laughed along with him. The foals may be a pain, but they were also fun to be around.

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Footnote:

Quest completed: ********

Chapter 11 - Goodbye

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 11 - Goodby

“I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people. If that's the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?”

― Ozzy Osbourne

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It was a large room that I sat it, with clean wooden fools, and smooth stone walls, but no ceiling. That or the ceiling looked like the sky, magic can do that sometimes. Also, hanging from the walls wew balcony's looking into the room. Each one filled with burly figures, some looked like ponies, others didn't. Catching my eye the most was in the middle of the room, an earth pony mare sitting on a large decorated bronze jar. Both the mare and the jar were beautiful.

The mare was the color of gold, her coat seemed to shine in the light, her mane was like a smooth curtain, and her long tail wrapped around the base of the jar. She had no Cutie Mark that I could see.

Her head slowly turned to look at me, giving me a warm smile. "Have you come to see me again my love? It's been so long, I fear that something may have happened to delay you." The mares voice was beautiful, like that of some of the actors from the movies I had seen. "If you were worried, I've been taking care of our wedding gift until you returned. Not once has it opened, not at all, not a peek." She bobbed her head as she spoke the last words, her main gently swish back and forth.

Stepping foreword, I could not help but feel a bit confused. "I'm sorry, but you've confused me with some pony else." the mare tilted her head. "can you tell me his name, I might be able to look for him for you."

"You jest my love. You are here, so you must be my love."

Closer, the mare realy did look like she was made of gold, other then the white part of her eyes, everything was the color of gold. "Who are you?" my voice spoke in a hush tone, but carried as though I shouted.

"My love, I am your bride Aurum. The god of the sky has gifted me to you, along with this pithos as a wedding gift. But I was told it must never be opened." and so she was sitting on top of it, like she was desperately trying to keep it shut.

"I'm sorry but I don't understand, who this god of the sky, I know of Luna and Celestia. Can you explain this to me?" This was getting weird, and maybe an explanation would make it I less weird to me.

The golden mare tilted her head. "I'm sorry my love, I thought you were informed. You brother has vested the god of the sky in a fair contest. Won fire for your people so that the night can be concurred. In extension of his victory, the god of the sky has sent me to be your bride, and this beautiful pithos as our wedding gift."

This did not tell me anything, other then the mare must not be right in the head. "So you were told to never open it?" She looked away as she nodded. I was terrible at telling if some pony was lieing, or just keeping a secret from me, but Aurum was as subtle as searchlights on the opening day of a new movie theater. "did you open it?"

Aurum shook her head back and forth. Her golden mane swished as her heads moment. Like searchlights.

"what was in it?" I pressed. It was not like I realy Wanted to know, but I felt like I might be here forever if I didn't get an answer. "It's okay if you told me"

She turned her back to me. "You wont be mad if I told you?"

sighing, I didn't even know Aurum, I was not her husband, so I doubt I could be mad at her for open a jar. "no, I will not be mad."

Stepping off the jar, Aurum turned to me. "I'm sorry my love, I had to know what was in it. To give me such a gift, and tell my to never know what was inside. It felt like a crule joke that the god would never play, so jut took a little peek."

The lid of the jar rumbled, and open a little bit. Aurum scrambled to close it, her hooves slamming on top with a clang. But it was too late, an ink black smoke streamed out like a boiling steam from a kettle, roaring like a ferocious beast. The poor mare Aurum was engulfed in the smoke, her cry's for help were drowned out. I tried to run to her aid, but found my hooves stuck to the floor, forcing me to simply watch the terrible seen take place.

The black smoke slowly lifted into the sky, dissipating from the small area of the room it had covered. Everything it had touched had turned black, the floor, the jar, and even Aurum was now black. She turned her head to me, coughing up black smoke, her eyes were now the only thing still golden. "sorry my love, I couldn't help myself." Aurum reached out her hoof to me, but it broke off, falling to the ground as a pile of black sand. The rest of Aurum followed, along with the jar, forming a large pile of black sand with two golden orbs resting on top. A small white jewel floated above the black sand, bathing everything in a warm light. The light it bathed me in made me feel like everything would be alright in the end, but it floating out of the room, leaving everything feeling cold.

The blackened ground became a hole, taking all the black sand with it into depths unknown. The hole slowly grew wider, taking parts not blacked with it, threatening to take me, my own hooves still stuck. With as much strength I could muster, I pulled at my front hooves to free them. With a cracking sound, the wood splintered under one hoof, some of the floor still stuck to my hoof like it was glued to it. With the one hoof free, it became easier to pull at the second hoof. The second front hoof becoming free with another cracking sound of wood. The black hole was getting close, so I pushed even harder to get my back hooves free. With three hooves pushing down as I pulled one up, it cam put with more of a pop. The last hoof came out even faster, but in my struggle to get free I stumbled foreword.

I looked down into the hole, it was nothing but a black abyss with no bottom in sight. A chill rushed down mt spine, as I felt any hope drain from me.

With hast, I ran to the door, of which there was none in this room. The room didn't even have a window, and the balcony's were to high for me to reach even reach. "HAY! GET ME OUT OF HERE! I KNOW YOUR THERE, SO PLEASE JUST THROW ME A ROPE."

"Your worse then the hopeless. At least they know that their place is in the pit." a familiar voice of a mare came from above. From that balcony a coil of rope fell from above, and I bit onto it, holding all with all the strength I could muster.

Feeling myself be pulled up, when I could I hooked my hooves to the balcony, and pulled myself up. "thanks." my voice strained as I pulled myself up. But there she was, Thorn, giving a spine chilling smile right at me.

Thorn had let go of the rope that I still needed to help pull myself onto the balcony, leavening me dangling above the hole by two hooves. "It;s so sad that Ponies like you need to be shown that there is no hope. That you must just let go and let the inevitabul take you." she kicked one of my hooves free, sending me into a swinging motion. "Before you go, can you answer me one question. Do you know another name for madness?"

Being told that you will die did not fuel any need to answer the equestrian with any seriousness, so I went with what felt right. "Who is Thorn Roseland?"

She smirked. "ohhhh... so close. What you were thinking of was glorious. But the answer to the question, the name is Equestria."

With a kick, I fell into the black abyss. In the darkness I felt nothing but a chilling cold that passed right through me. It's what I imagined what being dead must felt like. With no reward for a nopony that did nothing for anypony. Just cold darkness to embrace me.

__________________________

*Beeeeep, Beeeep, Beeeep*

The floor was just not the most conformable place to wake up. It was cold and hard, but at least my flank was still in bed, under the warm covers.

*Beeeeep, Beeeep, Beeeep*

"Just a moment!" Getting on my hooves, and stretching. It was not hard to tell that someone was buzzing the door, well beeping it. Stables are weird. "I'm coming!"

Trotting to the door I pressed the button to open it. With a soft hiss, the door revealed a exhausted looking June and Healing Herbs. behind them was Zaan and Under Brush, probably here to escort me out.

Most jobs that I had were like this. Not wanting a seen, so the local security were to quickly and quietly get the fired employee out. At least I thees two would be nice about, and probably sneak me a treat on the way.

In Healing Herbs magic was a clip board, and a metal like cylinder. The cylinder itself looked like the same as the thing Musket Ball used to install the tactical program for S.T.A.T. My guess it was the key to getting the pipbuck off my leg. "Mister Slowtrot, good to see that your awake, and still healthy" Healing Herbs voice was strained. "On behalf of Stable-Tec, I do apologize for the stress this pipbuck has put you thru, and I'm happy to say that we can now safely free you from it."

I looked to June, she gave me a nod. "thanks, but it was not that bad..." then I remembered that the thing nearly killed me. "well what I mean is that Stable-Tec has been nothing but hospitable." I moved to the side to let them in.

Healing Herbs walked into the room, choosing to stand in the middle of the floor. June joined her, as the other two stayed outside.

When Healing Herbs opened to say something, June cut her off by lofting a hoof in front of her. "Right, we can dance around the issue all day, but then two of us will fall asleep standing. So after we get that abomination off your leg, Healing Herbs want's you to sign a form. It's so that you will not sue Stable-Tec, or talk about what you haves seen or heard. In return you will be compensation for your time here."

Healing Herbs cleared her throat. "that is true, if a bit blunt. Mister Slowtrot, Stable-Tec has an image to uphold, and if it becomes knows that there is a pipbuck that can and will kill it's user, it would be a P.R. disaster. That's why it has been decided that you will be given a ticket to a stable as part of your compensation. Not this one, headquarters has chosen Stable 100. but only if you agree to our terms."

I already had a long time to think about what would happen if I didn't do things their way. Stable-Tec is the biggest company in Equestria, and making sure that I didn't talk about what they did want me to talk about would be easy. Sending me to another Stable was probably the easiest, and cheapest ways to do it. I could say no. It was a choice I could make. But even I knew it was the same as ether choosing to go to the corner, or bight a bullet. It was a chose, but ether way they would get what they wanted.

"Fair enough, I'll accept the terms." the best thing for me to do was to just agree with the terms. They were already offering stable ticket, so there was only going down from here if I chose to be greedy.

Healing Herbs floated over the clipboard, placing it on the ground in front of me. "there are a few lines you need to sign. But before we do that, that pipbuck needs to come off."

June stepped over to me, lifting my left foreleg up and closer to Healing Herbs. "now your probably going to feel a sharp pain right before the pibuck let's go of you. Think of it like ripping off a bandage, and you will be just fine."

The cylinder stuck into a port on the upper part of the pipbuck, much like Musket Balls program had. My vision blurred a bit as all the icons of the E.F.S. all lit up, before slowly fading away. Like June said, a sharp pain shot up my arm, except it felt like fire in my veins. I'd have thrashed around if it were that I had also become paralyzed, preventing me from even groaning in pain.

After a long few second, the pain subsided, I most fell to the ground when I could move again. On the ground next to me, was the pipbuck 2600, still looking like a peace of armor. "That was far more then a sharp pain!"

"Sorry about that, all we knew was that it would hurt, not how bad."

Healing Herbs placed the clipboard in front of me. "Just sign at the bottom of the page, and then were done."

Looking at the paper, it was far more slim then I thought it was going to be. "I though it be, well thicker then this.?"

Healing Herbs sighed. "No, this is just concerning your stay for the next few days. By signing this, you agree that you will stay under Stable-Tec's supervision. Once all the legal paperwork is finished, you will be free to go home."

"so, am I staying in the stable?"

June lifted up her hoof, interrupt Healing Herbs again. "You will be spending time at Stable-Tec's resort that's on the island. It's a bit isolated, so as long as you stay on the property, you wont have any ponies following you around. Also, the drinks will be free for the first day."

Taking the pen in my mouth, I singed my name. It was just me agreeing to stay at the resort until they had all their paperwork sorted out. It was a fare trade, and the free drinks were a nice added insensitive.

Taking the clipboard and the pipbuck in her magic, Healing Herbs simply walked out of the room with them, and out of sight.

June shook her head. "Don't mind her, shes normally much nicer. Now let's get going, there's a few ponies who will want to say goodby before you go."

I shrugged, the 2600 was no longer my problem. Gathering what few things I owned here, I fallowed June out. Zaan, and Underbrush were our escorts.

__________________________

"Surprise!" With a pop, confetti covered my head. Prancer Dancer, and Hydrangea had been waiting for me behind the door to the atrium, with party poppers at the ready. Prancer has a big grin on her face, the mare was in her element right now. "You may be going away, but that doesn't mean you cant have a party before you go." party ponies, party ponies never change.

The atrium was decorated with long green and purple ribbons that hanged form the balcony over head, and In the center was a cake and a box . Standing around were a few ponies, all of them I recognized: Candy Pop, Doctor Lifebeat, Easy Fix, Stress Test, Cloud Bank, Emerald Fields, and Pear Tart were all here. Some of the foals from yesterday were hear, and also some of the tech's as well, but they were mostly off doing their own thing.

"Well I'm more use to just getting a card with everyone's signature on it." I tried to keep a stoic face to all of this, but a smile won out. I was more use to other ponies not caring all that much about another pony leaving, me being among them.

Hydrangea jumped off Prancer and onto her fathers back. Prancer Dancer walked up to me, blowing some of the confetti out of my face. "Well, here at Stable-Tec everyone is family, and family gets a party. So go have some punch, we set up a bowl near the lounge. It was funny how Candy Pop was adamant that it had to be grape, but I spiked it with some sparkle cola to give it an extra kick." Looking over to the lounge, there was a big glass bowl with purple liquid inside. My mouth watered a bit at the sight.

Something to drink sounded like an idea, but I felt it would be best to say hi to everyone fist. Trotting over to the group, Candy Pop levitated a cup over to me, she was hovering two cups in her magic. "Morning Slowtrot, heard the foals had you running yourself raged." I took the grape punch, drinking it a bit greedily. It was realy good stuff.

"Ya, they thought it would be fun to play princesses of Slowtrot mountain. And seriously now, Hydrangea has got way too much energy." There were a few other games the foals dragged me into, but that one had wiped me out in the end. Simply it was just a game involving climbing on my back and staying on. But I didn't want them to clime all over me, so I raan away, and they chased me all over the atrium. Hydrangea had won in the end, but only because every pony else had run out of energy, including me.

"That sounds about right." Candy Pop Laughed. "That filly's got the making of an adventure. She's already managed to sneak herself into Labs B twice now."

"If she wasn't so cute, I would have had her punished." June cut in. "But I just gave her a bowl of candy, and handed her over to her parents." looking over to Zaan, he physically shivered.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for Hydrangea's parents, she seemed like a hoof full for Zaan and Underbrush. But then add a ton of sugar on top of that, it could not have been pretty.

June waked on over to were the box was, waving me over to follow her. "It's too bad that we can't stick around all day. So let's get to the present opening, then we can have cake."

"I'm guessing I'm one of the ponies that can't stick around"

June frowned a little. "That's right, something about all distractions needing to be sent away. Truthfully, I think she is just overworking herself, and your an easy target for her. So don't take any of it personally."

"No worry, I was never meant to be here in the first place." Picking up the box in my hooves, I gave it a little shake. It was a little heavy, an whatever was inside shifted around just a little. Looking back to the others, they all had given me room, some taking an extra step back. "what? It's not like you all would put a bomb in this?" some of them looked away. Now I was hesitant to open the box, my thoughts now suddenly full any kind of horror that could be inside. Even the thought of a bust of a pony head being inside as a joke ran through my head.

Wincing, I slowly opened the box. It exploded. Well the top had blown open and confetti burst out like a monster pouncing onto its pray. I was stunned by the shear amount of confetti that shot out. Also I felt stupid to think anything but confetti would have come out, I had already had the poppers shot at me just a few minutes ago. When it all ha settled, I and everypony else were covers in the stuff. Prancer Dancer was first to brake the silence, laughing her flank off.

Shaking off the confetti from my main, I looked inside the box. There was the pipbuck 3200, or S.R.P. MK 2 as Emerald Fields had called it. Lifting it up, I looked over at the others.

"I figured somepony outside this stable sould have one" June was trying to get some of the confetti out of her ear as she talked. "You did have that abomination on your lag, so why not have something better. Trust me, this one will never try to kill you."

I took a closer look at the pipbuck, the thing had a metallic light purple shine to it, and the buttons were ether a pale light blue, or a pale light green. On the left side of the pipbuck's face was fore icons. The top one just had 'Pip-Buck' etched onto it, on the second line it had 'Search & Rescue M2' on it, the third line had the Stable-Tec logo with 'R&D' next to it, and on the last two line was an image of my cutie mark.

I was taken aback by it. "You didn't have to go out of your way." I didn't know exactly what I was feeling, but there was more then two emotions going on.

Cloud Bank flew over to me, giving a wink as he landed. "No biggy. If were going to give you a pipbuck, It's not going to be some random massed produced pipbuck that we have thousands of. It's going to be the best kind of pipbuck we can make, and we made it a one of a kind."

I was already gotten use to having something attached to my left leg, so I put it right on. "so are there anything different about this?" My vision quickly filled with the E.F.S. It lingering a few seconds before all but the compass faded away.

June waved Cloud Bank away. He was almost looming over the cake, and Emerald Fields was about to cut it. "Other then the V.I. and the levitation spell, this pipbuck has an enhanced medical scanning spell program. By using the S.T.A.T. you can detect the general heath of ponies around you. Mostly at a distance it can tell you if another pony have a crippled leg or need a healing potion. But if you can get close and make physical contact, it can tell you a ponies overall heath in more detail. Why don't you try it out." June tapped her chest.

I placed my left hoof on her chest. "Iron Hoof, do the medical scan thing." the pipbuck chimed, and numbers appeared in my vision, starting from %0 and quickly finishing at %100. Taking the hoof off her chest, I looked at the pipbuck's screen that was now filled with text. "it stats here that you have minor lung damage, and you sould avoid inhaling harmful chemicals."

June frond at me for a second, then laughed a little. "The ponies in Labs C will probably have an easier solution for that in a few years."

A peace of cake on a plate floated in between June and I. "Now I know how excellent that pipbuck is, and that it's a real work of art, but right now we have cake." Emerald Fields had a upbeat tone to her voice as she pushed the plate into my mouth.

I took the cake to one of the small tables that were set around the atrium, as most of use did not have magic to hold the plate as we ate. The foals had rushed over to Emerald to get their peace of cake, leaving the adults to wait for the foal crowd to dissipate before getting some cake themselves.

"So Prancer reminded me that I would to get you something if you did that soda thing for me." Candy Pop had walked over, a metal canteen now hovering in her magic. It had the Stable-Tec logo on it, with the three bards wrapping around the side. The relief was yellow in color, and the rest was blue, making the canteen undeniably Stable-Tec. Candy Pop levitated the canteen into my bag. "The ponies in manufacturing realy like their over design. The canteens that were sent out are all meant to attach to the leg like the pipbuck, so this design never left R&D. But when I saw it, I thought you might like it."

"Thanks... This is, well a bit much don't you think."

Candy Pop gave a simple wave of her hoof at me. "Every pony here is always so worried about Equestria destroying itself. It's to the point that they will make any excuse to have a party. It's probably why they all took to the foals so quickly. I think they're just looking for reminders to why they do this kind of work."

"So I'm an excuse to have another party?"

She roiled her eye. "Yep. That and your just another normal pony. Your not going to war, or demand for more blood. We can all tell that you would rather be at home working on with your hooves. The kind of pony we realy hope lives through this mess."

I didn't have anything to say about that, so I smiled and took a bite out of the cake. The Cake was wonderful, with creamy chocolate frosting, vanilla sponge, and strawberry filling in the middle. Each bight I took I savored.

Prancer had put on some music, Sapphire Shores voice sang with a fun upbeat tune. The foals joined Prancer Dancer on the dance floor, but most of them just watched her as she pulled some of the most ridiculous dance moves I had ever seen.

Doctor Lifebeat also had a S.R.P. MK 2 on his leg, and after showing it to me, he told me a bit about his youth as a traveling doctor. He was actually from Equestria, but moved to the zebra lands with his wife, only moving back to Equestria a few years before the war started. Head ended up with Stable-Tec as part of a deal that got his family into Stable three. I commented on how dangerous the zebra lands sounded from his description, but he laughed and pointed out that Equestria has it's own monsters that roamed the lands. As a gift, Lifebeat transfused his instructions on how to make extra strength healing potions to my pipbuck.

Easy Fix, Stress Test seemed a bit sad to see me go. Telling me that there would have been no problem keeping me around, and that they could easily train me to be a maintenance pony. As it turned out from what they told me, the makings of an excellent maintenance pony involved two things: a good teacher, and years of practice. I was given six bottles of A Lab Soda by them, as well as instructions on how to make them for myself.

Pear Tart didn't have much to say, I think the cake spoke for him well enough. But he did give me ten packets of M.R.E.'s, and two bottles of hard pear cider.

The party went on for nearly an hour, only slowing down when red flashing lights suddenly turned on.

"Ether the overmare want's you to get going now Slowtrot, or some damn fool just opened the stable door without clearing it with security first." Under Brush rolled her eye. Turning to her husband, the unicorn mare lifted her energetic filly in her magic and levitated her over to Zaan. "Zaan dear, can can you take Hydrangea to her room. We can't have her sneaking out of the stable for an adventure."

Hydrangea looked shocked "but.. How... that's no fare!" the filly crossed her hooves as her father held her by the scruff of her neck, and dragged her off.

Under Brush turned back to me. "So ready for warm sand, and tasty drinks?"

June stepped in with a yawn. "I'd settle for a bed." She looked like she was ready to just find any spot on the floor and sleep. "But first I have to see you out."

I looked back to the others, most of them were enjoying themselves, the others gave me knowing smiles and nods. "Well now is as good as anytime." following Under Brush out of the atrium, giving the place one last look, hoping that stable 100 would be just as a warm place as this stable.

__________________________

As it turned out, the stable had another floor above residential that the stable door was connected to. It was the storage and security floor. Most of it looked like a large warehouse, with boxes stacked up to nearly the ceiling. The security part was going to be closer to the stable door, acting as what Under brush pit it, a checkpoint.

"With all this stuff, we could build another stable, probably two." Under Brush had began a long explanation after I had asked what were in the boxes. As it turned out, the R&D stable was also being used as the storage facility for spar stable parts. June even chimed in, telling me that now and then some of the researcher would often talk the parts to conduct tests, or make improvements to the parts. It was actually a bit fascinating, though all this information was giving me an odd headache.

Whenever Under Brush would stop talking for a moment, the storage facility would fall into a cold silence, with only out hoof-steps echoing thought the overly large room. Interrupting the pattern of chatting and still quietness was the sound and sight of another security pony galloping in our direction.

The security stallion slid on the floor, stooping right in front of us "JUNE! thank goodness, we need you to get to the overmare at once!" He was looking around nervously, almost in a panic.

"What's going on!?" June now fully awake because of the security pony's sudden arrive. "You sould be able to contact Healing Herbs from your station?"

The security pony took a deep breath, but didn't calm down. "Weave been trying to contact her, but Lab's D isn't responding. We even tried to contact Headquarters, but we can't get through!"

"What's going on?" June repeated.

The security pony looked confused again as he opened his mouth. "it's... it's the navy. Their her to... well they said that she... it's a lie right?"

"What's going on?" June repeated again.

"WERE HERE TO ARREST HEALING HERBS FOR HIGH TREASON!" The voice of a mare echoed with cold authority.

A large group of armed ponies walked towards us from where we were headed. Leading them was a earth pony mare with a light blue/gray coat, and a pale blond main. She had a blue jacket that was covered in metals, and a cap with the image of Luna decorating it. To her sides were two unicorns, both stoic as they walked in lock step with the mare they followed. Among the group were ponies in power armor, both the big silver tank like ones, and also the newer black pegasus power armor. Four of the stable security ponies were with them, looking as confused as the security pony that had stopped before us.

My headache suddenly felt a lot worse, and I had the feeling of dread in the pit in my stomach.

June put a hoof to her face. "I know Healing Herbs can be a bitch sometimes, but this is a bit too much. So who are you? And you better have a warrant for this intrusion."

The leading mare simply smiled as one of the unicorns that flanked her, stepped foreword. "you are speaking to Admiral Thorn Roseland, and hero of the Equestria navy."

My mind almost did a back flip. The crazy mare from my dreams was here, but was the admiral in the Equestrian naive. I wanted to ask about, to know how this was possible, but Under Brush gently shoved me to the side.

June briefly glanced at the unicorn. "Don't give a shit. Now unless you have a warrant to even be down her, you can expect Stable-Tec to bring this up to Luna herself." The other guards quickly trotted to Junes side, forming a pony wall of six.

From our position, I could see her cutie mark, it was of a green circle of thorns with a red teardrop in the middle. Just looking at it made something snap in my head. Like a warm liquid broke free at the base of my skull and warped itself around my brain. I remembered everything.

Thorn face contorted to a grin at June's response. "Oh trust me, I have a warrant." She glanced over at one of her lutenists, who pulled a peace of paper from a saddle bad, levitating it to June. "Now not to have you continue your rude behavior, tell me who you are, and on what authority do you have here." Her voice was calm, composed, and overall cold. June didn't answers, choosing to look over the paperwork first.

I looked to Under Brush, her eyes fixated at the exchange between Thorn and June. "We need to get June out of here." I held my voice as a hushed tone, so that only Under Brush could here me.

She glanced over to me, looking a bit confused. "why?" her voice was also hushed.

June was still reading the paper, seeming reading it twice. I knew what Thorn was, and the guard had told us they couldn't contact Stable-Tec headquarters, which meant she could do anything she wanted, and then cover up the truth. But I also knew that "Just trust me. Thorn is.. is bad news."

Under Brush just raised an eyebrow. "It's the Equestrian navy, their all bad news." her wispier was filled with sarcasm.

"Miss Thorn Roseland was it. Did you just shove this at a judge to sign?" June throw the paper back at Thorn. "This is the biggest crock of shit I have ever read. I know Healing Herbs did work on the first magaspell, but you would think if she gave the zebras the megaspell, she would have ran to them, not to Stable-Tec."

One of the unicorns lifted the paper, and paced in back into the saddle bag. "As an Equestrian citizen, your opinion is respected. Now tell me who you are, and what authority you have."

June laughed with a spiteful tone, steeping up to Thorn. The tall mare seemingly towering over Thorn. "My name June Log Baird of the Highlanders, and I know that the likes of your kind never respected the opinions of my people. Here I'm the head of the pipbuck development department, which also happens to be authority enough to send your sorry flanks out of this stable. Now leave, or I will drag you out of here myself."

I wasn't even given time to worry what Thorn was going to do to June, a swift hoof to the face sent June to the ground. "So your telling me that not only you have no authority to hold me up, but your not even an equestrian citizen. And here you got me hoping to pin the label of traitor on you, I guess I will just settle with spy." one of the Unicorns pulled out a 10mm pistol and levitated it over to Thorn. "But I can't say I'm surprised. Stable-Tec is full of bleeding hearts, who are too stupid to know that there is no nutral ground. you are ether the one shooting, or the one being shot." She took the pistol in her mouth, and pointed it at June.

My heart pounded, and everything seemed to slow down. The security ponies had rushed to Junes aid, armed with only batons. The navy ponies had taken positions to the sides of Thorn, guns at the ready. June looked up at Thorn and Thorn looked down at June.

Time had stopped, and the options for the Tactical Actions poped up. Musket Ball must have gotten it into the pipbuck under Junes nose, as a gift for me. I went through every action that was available to me. Jumping in to stop Thorn form shooting June came up as a %0 success. Rushing Thorn came out %0. Taking Junes place came up as %0. Every action I could take to stop Thorn was never anything but %0. So I chose to go through every option again to see if I missed even a %1. My hopes fell when I saw the bullet fly from Thorns gun. There was no way I could move faster then a speeding bullet, but with S.T.A.T. I could see one move in slow motion. In my horror, I watched as the bullet slowly moved thru June's head like she was but paper to the small led peace.

In the slowness of S.T.A.T. I could not scream as I wanted to. In all my impotent rage I knew there was nothing I could do but watch as June slowly fell back to the ground. The storm of thoughts in my mind slowly focused onto one word, a word the encompassed how hopeless I felt, reflecting my feelings as June just hovered above the ground.

Goodby.

__________________________

Footnote:

Quest Perk Lost: Advanced Pipbuck Modification.

New Quest Perk: S.R.P. MK 2 - It's just like the pipbuck 2600, but with an advanced medical scanning spell program, and without the hole killing you part.

Chapter 12 - The War that only Grows

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 12 - The War that only Grows

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”

― Voltaire

__________________________

In the slowness of S.T.A.T. I could see how helpless I was. I could attack, but I doubt I would live long enough to even splatter my own blood on Thorn. But at least I can run, it cost two action turns to sprint, but I would be able to get more distance before they would turn to shoot us as well. Under Brush had hooked a hoof over my neck, probably to stop me form running to June when Thorn had struck her, making my choice easier. Hydrangea would not loos her mother if I could do anything about it.

Selecting the option to sprint, a map with green line and an arrow at the end, appeared in my vision to mark were I wanted to go. The map didn't have much detail to it, but it did tell me enough of what I wanted to know. Selecting as far as it can go, just ending around a corner, I entered the end button.

Before time even had finished retuning to normal, I had already turned around and galloped away, dragging Under Brush with me. Each second was long, like time had yest sped back up. The sound of the gunshot had made my ears rind in protest, muffling my own hoof steps to me. It was not until we rounded the corner that the cold stillness had broken once more with the sound of cracking thunder drowning out all sound for a few seconds. There was no need to check to see with my own eyes, the five security ponies were all dead, they didn't stand a chance.

Looking over to Under Brush, I could see it in her eyes, she was in shock. I would have been too, but the time in S.T.A.T.'s had at least given me time to proses what had happens. The only problem was that I had no idea what to do next, other then running away, but how far could we go before we hit a dead end. Which Ironically means that we were going to die.

"We need to get moving, we need to hide." I pushed at her, she looked back at me. Her eyes had moved from shock to that of rage.

"No, they have power armor. Which means they have E.F.S. So they will find us no matter were we go." I slumped. We were outnumbers, out gunned, and had no place to hide.

"There has to be a way, something that can help us." I still had some hope, but it was quickly failing me.

"I KNOW YOU TWO ARE STILL HERE. SURRENDER NOW, AND YOUR LIFE WILL BE SPARED." Thorns voice echoed. I knew it was a lie, that or she had a worse fate for us.

Under Brush had scratched her chin with her hoof before a wide grin formed on her face. Slowly she got herself ready to gallop, and waited for me to do the same. She didn't need to tell me to follow her, If she was going to do anything other then wait for them to come to us, I was going to do it to. "Now" Under Brush jumped foreword into a gallop, and I did the same, but with a lot less grace. My hooves hit the ground with force, doing my bests to keep up with her, but with every turn we made she was further ahead of me.

I was almost out of energy when we finally stopped, panting heavenly as I looked around. We could not have gotten far, the warehouse was large, but not that large. Steping closer to Under Brush, my E.F.S. went crazy. The compass would not stop turning, and read and yellow bars were everywhere. Under Brush opened the side of a wooden crate, waving me to follow her.

I had entered a small hidden room. It had a cooler box, an ashtray filled with cigaret buds, and a trash bin that looked like it needed to be emptied out real soon. "can we hide here?" With the E.F.S. on the fritz here, it was a possibility. But I knew the answer was going to be a no, if only it would provide us a few minutes before they found us.

"No, we fight." opening up the cooler box, and in her magic she pulling out a soda bottle filled with a clear liquid. "We have the home field advantage, so were going to use it." she ripped up a nearby cloth sheet with her magic, shoving it into the bottle until the rag plugged the bottle up. "Slowtrot!" she pointed to a ladder. "I need you to clime up three levels. There, look for the top of a stable door. When you find it, undo the cables holding it in place, and wait for me to call you, and then push it."

I simply nodded, climbing up the ladder. This hole spot reminded me of the hidden base I had as a foal, but so much cooler. It didn't take long to find the stable door, well the top of it. There were a hole heap of ropes holding the thing to the shelf, and two notes of paper hanging from one rope. 'Do not touch the ropes, it took all day to get this thing stand up the last time it fell over.' 'Why in Tartarus are we storing a stable door here in the first place, who ever sent it here sould be fired!' I went to work undoing the ropes.

"Well there you are cowardly traitor!" I turned to see a pegasus hovering in her insectoid like power armor. With a battle rifle pointed at me, I could see her lick her lips. "Tell me were your friend is, and I'll make your death quick."

More time I could buy Under Brush, the more likely she could stop Thorn. "I don't know, we got separated." think dammit, think. But nothing came to mind, nothing at all. Frozen, the mare was going to kill me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

"wrong answer. but it doesn't matter, we will find the bitch soon enou..."

* Foosh*

A flaming bottle hit the side of the pegasus head engulfing her head in flames. She screen as she crashed to the ground.

Under Brush as there waiting for her, crowbar in her magic. "Found me." She swung the crowbar like a golf club, the pegasus muzzle giving a loud wet crack. Under Brush swung two more times, each time with the same wet crack.

Taking the battle rifle from the pegasus, she dragged the body in front of the stable door, before running off.

I spent a few seconds stunned, Under Brush scared me a bit there. Returning my attention to the ropes, I moved at a panicked pace. I was nearly done before I heard the sound of heavy steps on the floor, I had no doubt it was the other power armored pony. Untying the last rope, I quickly jumped behind the stable door, laying as flat as possible, before the light from his lamp found me.

"come out cowered!" assholes were shooting at ponies armed with nothing but batons, and they call us cowards. My own anger was bubbling to the surface, only head in check by my fear of the walking tank. "Zephyr!" the loud hoof steps rushed closer to me, stopping just below. "Fuckers! I will make them pay for this!"

"SLOWTROT NOW!" Under Brushes voice echoed as she yelled.

I placed my front hooves onto the stable door, and pushed with my back legs. With a creek and a pop, the stable door slowing tipped over, I fell in between it and the shelf as the big round gear keeped moving foreword.

"OH FUCK!"

*WHAM*

The sound was deafening. The shelf on the other side collapsed when the top of the stable door hit it on it's way down, covering the hole area in parts. Looking down, the stable door was nearly flat on the ground, the number 512 clearly displayed. For a second I wondered if their were actually that many stables out there.

Rubbing my ears, I looked over to see a hyperventilating Under Brush. I felt like doing the same, but whatever was interfering with my E.F.S. was making me more paranoid. Worrying me about the next navy pony that might show up to finish us off. "So, what's next?"

Under Brush shook her head and refocused onto me. "we need to seal the stable and warn the others. The door to residential will be lock locked, but I doubt it would take them long to get passed it." she pulled out a 10mm pistol, and slid it over to me. "follow me!"

__________________________

Quickly and silently as we could, we ran to Security. In the distance was a large double door, larger then the stable door from before, but more like a normal door. Under Brush lead me to to service door a little further away, so to avoid attracting the attention of the navy ponies inside.

"Fuck, the systems locked. This sould only take me a few minutes to work around, keep an eye out." Connecting her pipbuck to a terminal next to the door, she go to work tapping at the terminal.

My eyes shifted around warehouse, every shadow caused me to point the gun at it. Every little creek made me nearly press the trigger. Not that it mattered just yet, Under Brush showed me how to use the safety, so right now the gun wouldn't go off until the safety was turned off. Taking a deep breath, I put the gun down, with the pipbuck's magic I could quickly get it back into firing position if I needed to. I but what I realy needed was to calm down before I did something stupid. "So were did you learn to fight like that, were you in the military?" I keeped my voice low, I had only saw two power armored ponies, but there could always be more, and I wanted to hear them coming first.

"Ya actually. I was part of Celestia's Royal Guard for a spell."

I was impressed. When I thought of the royal guards, I always thought of the stuffy stallions that never smile." So how did you end up in Stable-Tec?"

Under Brush sighed. "Things just change. The royal guard were just that, guards. Our training was top notch, but it was all about protecting equestria, not fighting wars. So when we were called to war, I turned in my armor. It was not a popular thing to do, but most of the ponies that thought it was disregardful didn't live long."

That's rough. "That's rough."

"It was not all that bad. I spent a few years working in privet security, and patrolled what is now Zebra town. That's were I met Zaan, and we ran away to start a family."

"so you weren't trained for war, then what were you trained to do?"

The door oped up, and a wall of cool air hit the back of my main.

"If your talking about fighting, we were trained to fight monsters. Be creative on our hooves, ensure that all civilians are safe, and when possible, force the beast to flee back to it's home. Now let's go Slowtrot, we have a monster to fight... And a friends to avenge."

__________________________

So as it turns out, the royal guard had two common ways of fighting. One was to move as a group, forming a wall of armored ponies. The second was to trick their opponent to expose themselves, and strike at the week points. There were only two of us, and I was no fighter, but I did make good bait.

*Bang*

The 10mm bullet harmlessly scraped across the armor of the navy pony, but before they could counter attack, I was already out of their line of sight. Tactical S.T.A.T. was good for hit and run attacks, to bad the 10mm pistol was not. Jumping for cover, I did my best to covered my ears as the two navy ponies turned the corner to shoot at me.

*BANG* *BANG*

looking over the box I had hid behind, both navy ponies were dead, their brains no-longer in their heads. Under Brush was at the other side of the hallway, with a battle rifle resting on a box and in her hooves.

"Are you okay Under Brush, that thing was even louder then at the shooting range."

She shook her head, and pulled out a small vile. "It's nothing that a little bit of healing potion can't fix." poring a drop in each ear, Under Brush took a deep breath and sighed. "To think being a worried parent would pay off in firing rifles at other ponies."

Looking down at the two ponies, they were beyond any helping that a healing potion could do, no pony could fix dead. Looking ay the bodies, my stomach finally gave up.

After waiting for me to unload the cake and just I had earlier, Under Brush had me help loot the two bodied quickly: Two 10mm pistols, two battle rifles, along with two apple like grenades. "Didn't Musket Ball say that thees battle rifles were not in use anymore?"

She affixed a navy battle saddle onto me, placing the two extra rifles on ether side. I didn't like the feeling of having guns attached to me, but I wasn't going to complain. "The ground troops get all the new guns, thees rifles are probably the surplussed that were given over to the navy. It was the same in the royal guard. The guards that worked among the civilians would be given the newer gear because it was more likely to get used, where the the guards that worked in the palace had older equipment. The armor I had was actually over a hundred years older then me, but it was so well taken care for you'd never know by looking at it." After cleaning it off, Under Brush placed a bit in my mouth. "now let's get going before their friends show up."

Taking most of the ammo, Under Brush lead the way. We darted from one hiding spot to the next. Other then the noise from the battle saddles, I found myself a little better at seeking then I thought I was. Our rout avoided the main tunnel and would take us thru the brig before we got near the room with the stable door. This the hole area of the stable reminded me of a few old police movies: were the police station was gray, solid, and a bit unfriendly.

Stopping at the door, I saw three red lines in my E.F.S. and a ton of blue line. "I think they have some of our ponies in there."

"I don't know, they aren't hostile. not yet." Under Brush pulled out a grenade.

"No, sorry, I mean they are coming up blue in my E.F.S. that means they are listed as allies to my pipbuck."

She put the grenade away. "right, that has more advanced programs. I guess we'll have to do this the hard way. Slowtrot, use your S.T.A.T.'s to shoot the one on the left, I'll take the two on the right."

I wanted to say no, or ask to find another way to do this, but time was not on our side. "right, I'll... I'll do my best."

Under Brush gave me a worried look. "I'm sorry about this. I'll get you somewhere safe when we get the stable door closed." She reached out to the door button with her hoof. "Ready!" she pressed the button, and the door open with a soft hiss.

"Hay Clap Bang, about time you got here! we have been wa...." Time slowed to a crawl, and Three navy ponies stood before us, and they all were cute mares. The one that was talking was a unicorn with a sea blue coat and a bright pink main. The second was a pegusi with a grass green coat, and a pail green mane with a red streak. The last was an earthpony with a cream wight coat, and a blond and brown main. The third one was on my left, so I picked the chest to targets twice, it being the most likely part for me to hit.

S.T.A.T. took over, moving my body to aim at surprised mare. The battle saddle meant that I just needed to be pointing in her direction before firing. The crack of the rifles were deafening as two shots from each rifle fired at the mare, with only three of the bullets making contact.

When time returned to it's normal flow, I saw that my target crumpled onto the ground bleeding out. The two that Under Brush shot at were clearly dead with part of their skulls gone.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had run over to the mare I shot. "I'm so sorry. Under Brush, is there a healing potion nearby!" The mare spat blood in my face, and smiled with teeth covered in blood.

"Don't start.. start acting all innocent now... you traitors. You.. stripe lovers are all the... the same. Act all ni...nice, but in the end your still a... a traitor." the mare gasped, her hoof trying to hook onto something, but avoiding me. "papa, I did g..good didn't I." with that, she let out a long breath and passed out.

Quickly looking around, I saw a box with the marking the Minasty of Peace and galloped over there. Under Brush Tackled me. "Slowtrot, we don't have time for this." she paused to look over at the mare I had Shot. "And it's already too late to do anything."

I didn't struggle, I just let my body go, hoping it would just melt onto the floor. "It was too easy, it was just to easy to do." She let me go. "I just selected her, and then I killed her." I could feel my hole body shaking, and see my vision blur from water in my eyes.

"Just sit down Slowtrot, I can handle everything from here." Under Brush held some keys in her magic. "I just need to check on them first."

I was going to sit at the desk, but it was covered in the blood of the Unicorn mare, so I chose to sit under it. There were over a dozen security ponies, they were battered and bruised, but from how they were moving around, non of them were severely hurt. A mare burst out into tears after Under Brush talked to her, the others looked right pissed.

"We hit the armory, and then seal up the stable. That sould stop any of their reinforcements." A stallion spoke up with a deep voice.

"No, we don't have the time." Under Brush said as she pushed a battle Rifle into his hooves. "I'll take a team and hit the control room, we can use the guns we pick up. You and the rest can head to the armory, if were lucky, they will be too focused on me to see you coming."

The other security ponies picked up the rifles, pistols, and a grenades that were available. Attaching on the battle saddles they has savaged, and placing ammunition were it can be easily hoofed into the guns. Under Brush had come over to get the guns from me, along with the battle saddle. "It's going to be okay Slowtrot, once we have the door closed, we will come back for you, so just sit tight and stay hidden."

I believed her, she was far better at this then I was, reminding me about heroic tales of the royal guard I was told about as a colt. Now that I think about it, I did at one time want to become one. But as the war grew, my belief in heroes shrank. Now looking at Under Brush as she organize the others, I could feel a bit of that belief in heroes returning, and now that she had here fellow security ponies with her, I knew they could pull this off. All I needed to do was sit tight, and wait for them to return.

Hiding until everything was over was easier to do then I thought it was going to be. Joining them would only slow them down. The security ponies knew more about fighting then I did, and they had all the guns and bullets now. for a simple pony like me, it was better to just get out of their way.

Not long after they let, I turned on a radio that was on the desk, and slid back under. The music was more from Sweetie Belle, signing a brilliantly sad woeful melody, matching my own feelings. In this room was me, and three corpses, one I had shot myself. Down the hall was two more body's, that I had acted as bait for a trap. Down into the warehouse was the two power armored ponies, both flattened by the stable door I pushed over. And along the main path was June and the security ponies, if only I had remembered sooner, they might be alive.

The soft hiss of a door opening and drew my attention away from the music. Remembering what happened to the last pony who spoke up when the door opened, I stayed quiet and hidden. My heart pounded heavily in my chest, threatening to give away that I was here.

*Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump*

Though my heart did beat loudly, who ever had entered into the room was louder with each step. But it was strange, each heavy step sounded similar to that of the steal ranger, but didn't have the same clop feel to it. I tried to concentrate harder on the sound, but the radio was drowning out any details.

The radio was turned off. I held my berth. The sound of metal scratching along metal made my spine shiver in protest. A metal claws appeared in sight, slowly warping itself around the edge of the desk. I knew, I have been found. the desk was going to be flipped, and I was going to be shot.

"All available troops, the stable ponies have mounted a counter attack at the stable door, request reinforcements. Repeat. All available troops, the stable ponies have mounted a counter attack at the stable door, request reinforcements."

"This is Talon Leo Thunderfeather, I'm on my way." the voice was deep and maniacal.

*Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump* *hisss*

"You stay there little pony, I'll be back for you later."

The door hissed shut, and the room turned quiet.

There was was no sound but my own beating heart.

No sound as I was still trying to hold back my own whimpering.

Who was I trying to hide it from, I was alone now, no pony would hear me scream, wimpier and cry. It was not the three corpses in the room, they were dead, the dead don't care, their dead. I was the only pony I could hide it from, and that was beyond stupid.

"Or your going crazy." opening my eyes, Thorn was sitting in front of me... but she was younger, and looked different. "you sould realy start breathing now. Unless you realy want to die because you forgot how to breath. Not something you want on your tombstone."

I let out the breath, which only lead me to hyperventilate. "Wha.... what!"

"Got to love pipbucks, so full of secrets. Phobetor thinks she knows so much, but she missed me every time. Then again I am a tricky pony, always loved fooling others. I just had to hide in your soul, and she just fucked right on by, none the wiser." looking closer, she did look like Thorn, but had the same jade streak in her hair that I had in mine, and her coat was more pinkish. Also she was turning translucent. "Ah.. bloody hell, time to go. To make a long story short, a peace of me, well her, Thorn, is now a peace of you. Strange, Phobetor was so close to being right about what happened, but so very wrong."

I stood up, hitting my head on the top of the desk I was under. "Ow... the fuck is going on!" she was gone, but yet I knew she was still there.

"Almost forgot, you might want to help that security pony. You could die in the fight, I know you will die if you stay here. And well I don't like the idea of waiting for a griffin to come back and kill me, well you."

The room was quiet again. Nothing had changed, the three dead mares were here, and so was I. But yet I felt calm, scared shitless too, but I was not shaking, or crying.

"I must be loosing my mined to even consider the options." but consider them I did.

"So that's it then. I can stay here and hope that Under Brush wins. I could run and hide in the stable, hope they don't look for me. Or I could try to help Under Brush." three paths, each one offered death, two involved me waiting for the dice to role my fate. The last option would be like playing roulette, but the weal was a gun, the ball was a bullet, and the bet was is life. "Fuck it, you win."

Under Brush and the other security ponies had taken all the guns in the room, so I had only my hooves, and a pipbuck. One can cave a pony's head in with a pipbuck. I bonked my own head with the pipbuck, suppressing the murder pony in my head. With nothing left in the room but regrets, I pressed the button to the door, it opening with another hiss.

__________________________

Gunshots echoed throughout the the halls, and between them were screams. This felt less like a safe stable, and more like what I could only guess, a battlefield.

Yep, this was a insane mistake. I had not gone far before slipping on some poor ponies blood. There was no body to tell if it was a security or a navy pony that die, but there were a bunch of bloody hoof steps leading in one direction. Among the hoof steps was a patter distinctly not a hoof print, and taking a rout up a nearby flight of stairs.

Checking my pipbuck, it gave me three routs to take to get to the stable door. One taking me to the main tunnel, something we were avoiding. The second was the same direction as the hoof prints. The last going up the stairs, It being an easy guess that the hoof prints... claw prints belonged to Leo.

I knew Under Brush could take care of herself, far better then I could take care of myself. But that griffin, had to be a griffin, was going to be a problem, I just new it. "Definitely insane." I took the stairs, hoping I didn't just make a big mistake.

The cracking of rifles, and the pops of pistols only grew louder as I got closer to were the stable door was. Much of noise came from an open doorway, along with the feeling of fresh damp air. The air in the stable was clean, cleaner then the air in Applewood, but it also happened to be dry, and stale.

Taking a peek, as I was not so suicidal to just jump into a gun fight, I saw the biggest mettle gear in my life. The door to the R&D stable was far larger then that of the one I pushed over in the warehouse, big enough that a pony could drive a tank through it. A large group of navy ponies were all over the ground floor, firing at Under Brushes group, keeping her from getting to what I guessed was the control room. Looking over the balcony was a griffin completely encased in black painted power armor, holding onto a minigun in his, hers, its claws.

Under Brush may be able avoid the shots from the navy ponies, but not from Leo. From the Griffons position, Under Brush and the two other security ponies would not last long. Looking around for a solution, but nothing presented itself to me. The griffin placing the minigun on the rail, and it's motor revved up.

I hit S.T.A.T. hoping that this time I could do something. Checking each option quickly, as I knew time was still moving. Most options came at best %15, at worst %5.

"Don't think about hitting to solve a problem." the area behind the kneecap lit up on the griffin. "Because you will not. But you can make the fight far more chaotic with one well placed strike."

The murder pony in my head did not make me feel any more confidant, but if there was a pony who could turn this situation around, it was...?

"you can think of names later."

Right, luckily the griffin was close enough for me to perform a navy buck on it. Time slowly returned to normal as my body moved with a strength I doubt I could do on my own. The minigun fired just before I made contact, it sounding like a chainsaw on magical rocket fuel. My hooves hit the back of the griffins kneecap, pain shooting up my back legs in protest of kicking the steel clad griffin.

As the griffin fell to one knee, the minigun did not stop firing, but the griffin did loos it's grip of it with one claw. Unable to hold it up with just one claw, the minigun turned downwards, raining bullets onto any pony on the ground floor for a short few seconds before the griffin dropped it.

"Big mistake" I could feel the anger from the maniacal voice of the griffins helmet. "Which leg do you want me to pull off first,"

A bullet ricochet off the griffins helmet, but Leo didn't even pay it any attention. Slowly stepping over to me, I hit a wall backing up. Another bullet hit the back of Leo's helmet, then another bullet hit the shoulder of the griffins armor. The griffin loomed over me, on claw in the air.

"Ready to die pony?"

"I, I... Don't think I am!" I turned S.T.A.T. back on. If I was going to live through this, I was going to be smart about this.

"I say go crazy. The griffin has grenades, pull the pins."

Wait I can't do that, I'm not a unicorn... but my pipbuck has levitation.

In S.T.A.T. I selected the pins of two grenades in the levitation, and and to run away. when time resumed, the pin floated between the two of us for a split second before my body bolted off.

*BOOM*

I tumbled from the shock wave, rolling hoof over head until I slid to a stop. Taking a moment to catch my breath, I got back to all fours, my body hurting all over. It was something I would have to remember, that I would need to run faster next time I set off a grenade like that.

"Not good enough little pony" Leo still stood there, unfazed by the explosion.

Oh fuck me with Celestia's solar powered horn, this griffin is so going to kill me.

Another bullet hit the griffin, but this time Leo stumbled a little, and buzzing nose came from the armor. "now die" He growled. Before I could even blink, Leo had puled out a pistol, and shot me. My left shoulder exploded in pain.

I didn't scream, or wimpier, I just slumped over onto the ground. I was not dead, but I had never been shot before, and by tartarus did it hurt. Stunned by the pain, I just stayed on the ground.

*Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump*

"I'd say sorry little pony, but you made this personal"

*PING FIZZZ*

"Fuck!."

*Tap* *Thump* *Whoosh*

I opened my eyes, having to wiped some water out of them before I could properly see. Leo was gone, which meant I might live. Checking myself, the bullet had hit me in the shoulder, blood was poring out slowly bit constantly. It hurt like nothing I had ever felt before, and though there were a few times I had hurt more, that was for a split second, this pain was not going away any time soon.

The gun battle below was still going on, and taking a look I could see that the other security ponies had joined the battle, pushing back the navy ponies. But the navy ponies also had reinforcements, turning the stable doorway into the battle line.

The room was suddenly bathed in a yellow flashing light. The hissing of steam, and a loud buzz going on and off drowning out all but the gunshots. The Stable door moved, and any navy pony still in the stable fled outside, one unlucky pony tripped, and was crushed by the massive door like he was nothing. In place, the stable door completely blocked any fight from continuing, filling the with an uneasy quiet. for a few seconds. with the sound of something powering up, the door pushed itself shut with the sound of metal grinding on metal.

It was done, the stable had been sealed.

I tried to get myself back up on all fours, but my bullet wound spiked in pain whenever I moved my left leg, and the pain from the grenade blast didn't help. So I slumped back to the cold metal ground. It felt solid and safe, so I just closed my eyes to take a little nap.

*Smack!*

My eyes shot open with pain, and a bottle was shoved in my mouth. Above me was a yellow unicorn stallion in security barding. "Kid, that was a real dumb stunt you pulled there. And I'd hug ya for it if I didn't think that you might have a collapsed lung." much of the pain faded away, though the bullet wound still hurt, the pin was far more dull.

The Stallion helped me up, and after a few steps I felt good enough to move on my own. Healing potions are awesome. "so is everyone ok?"

The stallion sighed. "we lost nearly half of us in that fire fight alone. Those military ponies are damn good shots, if the fight lasted any longer then it did, we'd be all dead by now."

We were heading to the control room from what I could guess. I didn't know the stable as well as they did, but we hadn't gone down stairs. "So is Under Brush ok?"

"I heard she got hit, but it wasn't so bad to keep her from fighting. she should be just around the corner."

Around the corner I saw blood splatter everywhere. There were a few dead navy ponies on the floor, and one security pony. I stopped when I saw a served leg on the ground. It was mangled at the end were it cam off, and it still had a few clean patches of a powdered blue coat to it. It was Under Brushes leg!

Bolting further in, I saw two security ponies frantically bandaging up another pony. It was Under Brush. One of her back legs were gone, as well as the other back hoof. From the looks of her bandages, she had taken other injuries that looked far worse then mine. "Oh no. no, no, no, no, no."

Under Brush smiled when she saw me. "Good to see that the griffin didn't kill you. But damn, I want some power armor now. Damn bird didn't die, even after I shot it in the head three times." that was her, of coarse that was her.

"Are you going to be ok?"

"Don't know, use that pipbuck there and tell me." she coughed up blood, it oozed from her mouth.

I put my left hoof gently on her, and activated the medical scan. When it was done, I took a look at the pipbuck. The screen of the pipbuck turned into a wall of text, with a lot of words I didn't understand, probably about inside pony parts. But I did understand one thing that the pipbuck was telling me. 'immediate sugary is required, or patient will die.'

I looked to the other security ponies, two more had joined us. "We need to get her to a doctor now, or she's going to die."

The yellow stallion sighed once again. "I can see that." the magic from his horn lit up, and levitated a healing potion into Under Brush's mouth. "the problem is that I doubt we can move her, and the damn soldiers busted up our radio. So were going to need a pony to go get a doctor for us."

"Right, Lifebeats sould still be in residential, I'll go get him!"

"Hay wait now! I didn't mean you go get a doctor, you don't even work her."

I didn't feel like listening, not with Under Brush coughing up blood. "I'm the Stable-Tec R&D courier, and we don't have time to wast." I was off, bolting down the hall, so careless with my steps I more slid down the stars then ran. I didn't have time to worry about my own safety.

__________________________

I had galloped faster then I had ever ran before. My lungs burned in protest, but they didn't get a say in the matter.

It wasn't until I got to were everything went wrong that I stooped for a moment. Six ponies were on the floor, in a pool of blood. Five security ponies, and June. My anger began to boil when I saw what Thorn had done to her, Junes left foreleg had been cut off, and left on the ground mutilated. Her pipbuck was missing.

I didn't have time to cry, or to swear vengeance. There was a life that could still be saved, and longer I stalled, the less likely Under Brush was going to live.

Galloping around the pool of blood, I made my way to residential. I could only hope Thorn hadn't stated killing everypony inside.

__________________________

Footnote:

Quest Started: End of Time.

Level up: Level 2.

New Perk: High Ho Silver, Away! - You’re a fan of cardio and sprints, especially if said sprints are done away from

the direction from which the bullets are flying. Your ground movement speed is increased by %10 in light armor. This perk can be taken up to two times, and its effects stack with other movement speed increasing perks. Does not affect other forms of movement.

Chapter 13 - A Slow Trot into Darkness

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 13 - A Slow Trot into Darkness

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”

― Maya Angelou

__________________________

June's pipbuck was hanging by a cable, attached to the terminal for the door into residential. It was covered in her blood, making me at least glad that she was not alive when they mutilated her leg to get to it. My only guess was that Thorn had used it to open the door, and left it for her troops to use. After using the pipbuck to open the door myself, I hoofed Junes pipbuck into my saddle bag. It would not have felt right to leave it there. In my upper vision, the icon for June's pipbuck 3100 poped up for a short time before fading.

Residential was quiet, but I saw no signs of any fighting, so I hurried to the atrium. My hoof steps seemed to echo loudly, as though I was being mocked with every noise. Thorn troops would hear me coming long before I would see them on my E.F.S. But I ran harder, thinking I could outrun an echo.

Sliding to a stop at the atrium door, I hit the button to open the door. I didn't even wait for the door to finish opening, rolling under the door and into the atrium. My chest pounding, lungs burning, and all four legs refusing to stay still.

"LIFEBEAT! WE NEED DOCTOR LIFEBEAT NOW!"

The atrium still had most of the decorations from the party earlier. But the room was eerily quiet, no music or foals at play. There were a few ponies sitting on one of the benches; Candy Pop, Cloud Bank, and Emerald Fields. In the middle of the room Prancer Dancer was sweeping up confetti, was being the main word, as she dropped her broom when I shouted.

"Slowtrot!" Prancer Dancer rushing over to me. "What happened?... your covered in blood!"

"Yes, that's not important. It's Under Brush, she needs Lifebeat right now. She's going to die if Lifebeat doesn't get to her in time!" My head moved around frankly, hoping I would see him. "Were is he!"

Prancer took a step back. "What happened Slowtrot?"

"it's..ahh..umm.." I took a deep breath. "shes been shot, real bad, the healing potions can do only so much." I lifted my pipbuck to her, it still had the information from the medical scan. "It's on here. Look."

My leg was pulled away from Prancer with magic. "let me look at that." Candy Pop looked intensely at the pipbuck screen. "WHAT! WHAT THE FUCK!" She looked up at me, looking scared. "She has twenty four bullet wounds, and a severed leg and hoof!"

Cloud Bank, and Emerald Field had also joined in. I didn't have time to explain everything, every second was a second I could not loose. "Just get Lifebeat now, take him to the stable door, third floor."

Prancer Dancer nodded, "Candy Pop, you go on ahead, I'll get Lifebeat." she was off, her paniced running was far more skilled then mine was. Candy Pop looked frantily around befor taking a deep breath and galoping off.

"That's wrong, they said they were holding every pony for questioning. They wouldn't do that." Emerald Field was had a worried look, almost panicked. "Is June okay? Shes okay right?"

My heart sank, and my mouth became like a desert as I spoke. "Iron Buck, pul... pull out June's pipbuck." The pipbuck floated out of my saddle bag, it still cover in blood. "Sorry, I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do." Emerald Fields took a few step back before fainting. Cloud Bank just sat down, staring blankly at the pipbuck. I could see it, they had not just lost their boss, they had lost a friend.

I tried to give the pipbuck to Cloud Bank, but he just shook his head, pushing it back to me, so I put it back into my bag.

That was it, I delivered the message. The ponies that could help Under Brush were off to save her life. Laying down on the ground to catch my breath, the full extent of how hard I pushed myself finally cough up with me. My lungs hurtl hurt every time I breath, my body was sour all over, and even though the bullet hole was closed, some of the pain was still there.

After a few minuses Emerald woken up. Taking a quick look at me, she turned her head away. "She said everything will be fine, that they had Stable-Tec's approve to be here. She even gave candy to the fouls before asking for them to be sent to their rooms. They were only here for Healing Herbs, every pony else would not be involved pased being asked a few questions."

"Your talking about Thorn right, the Admiral?" She nodded. "Thorn was the one who killed June." She winched. "June told her to leave the stable, that Thorn didn't have any authority here. So Thorn shot her."

"And then she lied about being let in by June." Cloud Bank growled as he spoke.

Emerald fields got up onto her hooves. "Right. We can't let her get away with this. The stable needs to be warned, and organized. We also need a plan to capture the admiral. You said the stable was sealed right Slowtrot?" I nodded. "There's a possibility that they could open the door from the other side, we need a plan for that to."

Cloud Bank flew up the the round window that overlooked the atrium. "The best place to start is the overmares office. The com system there is contented to every part of the stable."

I had another message to deliver, so we were off to the overmares office. Like what Under Brush had said, we have the home advantage, and we were going to use it.

__________________________

This is Emerald Fields, do to the extreme circumstances I will be directing the stables through the intercom systems. The stable is now under security level red, this is not a drill, The stable is now under security level red. All nonessential personal pleas get to safety and lock the doors once you and any others with you are safely inside. I repeat, The stable is now under security level red, all nonessential personal pleas get to safety and lock the doors once you and any others are safely inside. Once again, this is not a drill. When it is safe, we will give an all clear, but until then keep your doors locked.

After getting into the overmares office, the plan was to use the intercom to contact Healing Herbs and warn her about Thorn. But like with security, we could not get through to Labs D. Our next option was to get in contact with a member of the senor staff, and have one of them become the acting overmare until we can regain contact with Healing Herbs. But It didn't take us long to find out that all the members of the senor staff were in Labs D with Healing Herbs. So the stable was without leadership as it was under threat by the navy.

Cloud Bank filled me in to why this was a big problem for the stable, as the senor staff's had the codes to opening and closing the stable on their pipbuck's. Security may be able to close the door, but the navy could still hack into the door controls and open it. But if a member of the senor staff stepped in, they would be able to lock out the other side from the door controls, insuring that the the navy would not be able to get in.

Emerald Fields took charge of the situation, and after her announcement The Intercom nearly became clogged with researcher wanting to know what was going on. She was able to get some order among them, but there was a few researcher who argumentative at the least.

"We If we can at least get one of them back up here, then we don't have to worry about the Navy getting back in right."

Cloud Bank nodded. "We also need one of them to open the door if they fails to get in, and further locks down the door. Without their code, it's a bad situation."

"Well this is Stable-Tec, you guys have to have a way around this problem."

Could Bank sighed. "Give us time maybe. But if they open that door, it's not going to matter."

"So... why don't we go get them." Cloud Bank raised an eyebrow at my suggestion. "Can't we just send some ponies down to Lab's D?"

He froze for a a few seconds. "It's... It can't be that simple."

I had to think for a few seconds on that. Thorn was a known threat, but they didn't know about Phobetor. "It's not, were going to need some of the security to go down with guns."

He shook his head "Send them off to battle, I don't like it."

Another thought crossed my mind. "If they go down their, what happens if the senor staff is all dead, then what do we do?"

Emerald tapped at her desk, getting out attention. "Then grab their pipbucks, if you can at least get their pipbucks up here, I sould be able to get the code out of them. It's just going to be faster if we get one of them up here unharmed. Also I found a less violent solution to subduing the soldiers, Labs C has told me about a Knockout gas they had developed. If we send some down to Labs D, then we sould be able to get the staff out of their without resorting to violence."

"Sounds like an idea. Then we have a plan, I'll head down to Labs C and pick up the gas."

Cloud Bank jumped in front of me. "Wait, your not doing anything like that! We got security for just this kind of reason!"

Now I sighed. "And most of them are dead. Anyways, do you think they are going to just believe Emerald. I'm betting that they think this is a prank, I'd think it was a prank if I didn't see it myself." Cloud Bank backed up. "If I do down there looking the way I do, then they might be a lot less willing to argue."

Emerald Field cleared her throat. "Also were going to need Junes Pipbuck to open the elevator door. With the Stable in lockdown, only senor staff can move between floors. June may not have been part of the senor staff, but her pipbuck is what theirs are bast off of, so the doors will at least open up for it." That was it then, even if they could get every pony organized, some pony still needed to go down there and open a door.

"Dammit..." Cloud Bank rummaged thru his pockets, pulling out two devises. "Here, take thees, an Ear Bloom and a Broadcaster. This way we can stay in contact when you go down to Labs C." He got out of my way. "I can't believe you I'm agreeing with you. Now go before I change my mind"

__________________________

"testing testing, can you hear me Slowtrot?" Cloud Bank's came through mostly clear in my left ear.

"I can, and your right, The elevators offline." I had pressed the button over ten times, and not even a beep.

"Thought so, I bet they hacked the elevator to keep it locked. Then you have to take the stairs, ether go left or right, we have two sets of stare that can take you down to labs A. The stairs will only take you between two labs, but they keep the stairs close together. So getting to Labs C sould not take long."

"What about Labs D?"

"Don't know why, but it's elevator only. But don't worry about that, Just get down to Labs C."

Galloping down the hallway to my left, I eventually found the stairs. The door to them were locked, but with Junes Pipbuck, it didn't take long to open.

The lights in the stairwell were dim, and the air even more stale. It was also so quiet the I could hear my heart beat every time I stopped. 'So your going to fight, I don't think that's a good idea, Just sticking to the plan they made sould work.' fantastic, the murder pony in my head was back.

"I need to stop her."

[i']You know that she will just kill you, and as former part of her, and now a part of you, I don't much like that idea. Though gassing her dose sound like a solid plan, but I'm betting on her killing you in the end.'

"Then what sould I do then?" taking advise from the murder pony only made me feel stupid.

'Fist off, call me Fragment. Murder pony dose sound like an awesome name, but only if I was a wrestler. Second, we can always have some pony else do it. Or better yet, get the teleportation spell from Labs B. all we need to do is get some coordinates far from the stable, the power for the spell, and poof were free.'

The door at the end of the stairwell was in reach. "Or we can just gas Thorn, and stay safe here."

'True, but you forgot about that Nightmare bitch. I doubt this stable is anywhere near safe.'

I didn't forget about Phobetor, she was what had me the most worried. I opened the door to Lab's A, doing my best to ignore ignoring Fragment.

Taking a quick look around, there were a few ponies standing around in an open room. I yelled at them to get to some where safe, of which I think all the blood on me was enough to get them running.

I pressed on the broadcaster. "Cloud bank, looks like we have a few ponies who are still out and about."

"Don't worry about that, Emerald is taking care of it. She's relaying the information to all the research leaders she can contact get in contact with. Just focuses on getting to labs C, open the door for the ponies there, and return here."

"right, moving on." turning off the broadcaster, I entered the second Stairwell that connected Labs A to Labs B.

"Okay, before I start thinking that I am going crazy, how are you even talking to me Fragment?"

'Go ask a pony that knows shit about souls. But if I were to guess, and this is more you guessing. It's probably have to do with the memory's from the pipbuck. There is more then just what you have seen, enough that I know that the memory's are not yours, but mine. Also with Thorn being nearby, that might also be whats bringing me to the surface.'

"that, that sound like it makes seance."

'To you it dose, and that's because your talking to yourself, I'm probably more you then her now. So my explanation is more just you rationalizing what's going on.'

Fragment was starting to realy irritate me.

'Well, be irritated all you want, but If you're realy doing this, then you're going to need some guns.'

The door to Labs B was in sight. I had to agree with her on that, I'll need a gun if I'm going anywhere near Thorn. Their was no way I was not going down there, I had at least an idea what might be waiting for us.

__________________________

Musket Ball opened the door after the fifth time I pressed buzzer. "Y'all better have a good reason for being a nuisance." He looked at me a bit confused. "I that ya were good as gone?"

Tanking a deep breath, my heart pounded, and my body was shaking a little. "Mister Musket Ball, I need to borrow a gun from you."

He huffed. "what cha going to do with it, shoot somepony?"

"Only id I can't avoid it." I was going to say more, but I healed my tong.

"Kid, bringing a gun makes it far harder to avoid a fight, more'so if the others have guns as well."

I sighed, I realy didn't have time for this. so I showed him Junes pipbuck, I had cleaned off the blood in the overmares offices, but it still had the same effect. "They already killed June, most of the security, and Under Brush may never walk again. The fight has already started."

Musket took a step back. "Damn Zebras, let me get my rifle."

"It's not the Zebras... It's the Equestrian navy."

He froze in place.

"They branded us all as traitors working for the Zebras. It's a lie, but if Thorn kills everyone then she can make it the truth."

"And how do ya know diss?" Musket raised an eyebrow.

I took a few slow breaths, I had to make the explanation quick. If I said anything about the pipbuck 2600 being Thorn's, or her being an assassin, it would take more time to explain then I had to wast. "The navy ponies said it a few times in security. I think they just want to claim the stable, and call themselves heroes for doing it."

"And they killed June for this." I nodded. "so you have a plan?" I nodded again.

"Under Brush was able to seal off the stable, but the admiral has gone down to Labs D. If I can get some knockout gas into the ventilation, then we sould be able to capture her."

"I see, I remember hearing from Easy Fix about how easy it is to gas a stable." he turned around and trotted deeper into the room. "take what you used before, no use learning how to use a new gun right now." he pulled out to metal boxes from under a table, and some belts.

Musket Ball offered to put on a battle saddle on me, but didn't push when I refused. He instead strapped a holster onto me, one for the battle rifle, and another for the .45 auto pistol. The pipbuck called them the Stable-Tec Battle Rifle, and the Stable-Tec .45 pistol. I was also given six clips of .308, and three magazeens of .44, with enough ammo to refill them. It all felt odd to me.

I didn't stick around after I was given the guns and ammo. But I did ask him to look out for the security ponies if they need guns and ammo as well.

__________________________

The stairwell from Labs B to Labs C seemed to be even darker then the last stairwell.

'You do know that unless you catch them off guard, Thorns troops are going to kill you faster then you can pull a trigger.'

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Fragment. So you have other memory of Thorn?"

'It's mostly a mess, but yes, some. The memory's that are clear to me are the ones that you have seen. The rest are faded and blurry, but I can peace them together enough to be not you. But it's strange...'

"what is?"

'The more I clearly remember the memory, the more I fade myself. Have you gained any new memory from the pipbuck?'

"No, I only have the two."

'Have you been on a boat before'

"No, well not no. One time as a filly I was pickpocketing rich... wait that's not right."

'thought so, that was the last memory I reconstructed. Now it's yours.'

"And you said that you fade every time you remember something clearly."

'Yes, I can only guess that I'm being absorbed by you. Fragments of memory and souls rejoining in a new body.'

"Well stop it, I may like to get closer to a mare, but not in that way, and not with Thorn."

Fragment gigged, it was creep as it was in my head. 'I got no control over it, I will remember and be absorbed. Just cross your hooves that none of the memory's involve sex, though it be fun to see you squirm.'

Well I was done talking to fragment about any of this, and bolted the rest of the way down the stairs.

__________________________

Waiting for me were the techs and that security ponies down in Labs C. Emerald Fields had pulled through, and gotten the ponies organized.

"Umm, Hi...." right, almost forgot I was no action pony. "I Have the pipbuck you need."

They whispered among themselves, looking worryed and confused. One of the security ponies stepped forward. "Looks like she wasn't lying. Unless that's dried jam that you have all over you, and toy guns strap to ya."

"No not jam, it's blood. And Musket let me borrow the guns. I'm going down with you to help." I looked over to one of the techs who had a metal box next to her. "Is that the knockout gas?"

The tech looked at the box, and back at me. "Ye...yes, we just need to install it in the air purification in Labs D, and turn it on. After a minute or two, every pony in Labs D will be asleep."

The security pony snorted "After that, we can work on capturing the invading ponies, and remove them from the stable."

I pulled out the pipbuck from my bag, and gave to one of the tech's. Taking it, the tech totted off don the hall to the elevator. The job I was originally sent down here for was done, now the rest was personal to me.

From what I could see, Labs C was quite different from the other two labs. Everything was clean and white, and most of the rooms I could see were filled with test tubes, a rainbow of color under glass for experiments unknown to me. It was like the old science fiction movies had come to life down here. I wondered what kind of experiments were going on down here. But with the mission at hoof, I didn't ask them.

Not long after the tech plugged the pipbuck into a terminal connected to the elevator, the doors opened. A strong wind came from the door, surprising me and a few others, but we all quickly regained our composer.

"So, I was wondering, how are we going to get down?"

A harness was tossed near my hooves. "By rope, just put that on and we will descend down."

Four security ponies, two tech ponies, and the gas were all outfitted with the harness. I also quicly put on the harness as well, but had to get some help. When every pony was ready, two ropes were hooked onto the inside of the elevator shaft, and thrown down into it.

"Slowtrot, can you let Emerald Fields know that were sending the gas to Labs D."

Noddin, I turned away and pressed the button on the broadcaster. "Could Bank, Their about to head down to Labs D, with the gas."

Static filled my left ear. "Good, now get back up here, we might need..."

I turned off the broadcaster and waited for a few seconds. "Got it, I'll let you know if anything changes down there." Turning back to the others, they nodded to themselves and turned their attention to the elevator shaft.

Each one clipped a devise to the harness, it was a rope that connected to the harness with a metal part dangling at the end. Two of the security ponies clipped the metal end to the rope in the shaft, jumping into the shaft soon after. With a *click* a unicorn had attached one to me as well. "This is a magical rappelling tool. we have it already set to descend at the same speed as every pony else, you just need to attach it to the rope, and jump."

I looked at the rappelling tool, it seemed simple enough. "thanks."

The others had just attached the box with the gas to both of the ropes, and pushed it off. The other two sucrity ponies were nowere to be seen, so I guessed that they were already in the shaft. The two techs were next to jump into the shaft, though they seemed far more hesitant to do it.

I looked over into the shaft, both above and below I saw a dark pit. *Click* the unicorn attached the rappelling tool to one of the ropes, I looked back at her and nodded. She lifted Junes pipbuck in her magic, placing it back into my saddlebag, I gave her a smile. Sitting at the edge of the shaft, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I came this far, and I wanted to go back. I wanted to crawl into a bed and pretend to sleep. I wanted this to be a bad dream.

Sliding off the edge, the rappelling tool stomped me from falling. instead I slowly descended into the darkness.

__________________________

When the elevator doors closed, It felt like I was smothered in darkness. But unlike with Phobetor, it was warm, and the air seemed to pulse.

Below me I could see the lights of pipbucks turn on. Illuminating the six ponies that had gone down before me. So I fiddled with mine until I found the pipbuck lamp function. Lighting up the area around me in a soft glow that only seems to extend two legs far.

There was a little chatter at first, but every pony quiet down after a security pony told them to. There may have been a possibility of the navy ponies hearing us if we got too loud.

With the dark surrounding me, and every pony talking in whispers, I half expected Phobetor appear to taunt me. But there was nothing, and I didn't like it. each creek, and shadow made me jump, and everything started to blur together as time went on.

There was no color.

The sound was a consent hum.

And the air pulsed.

"Mister Slowtrot, I see this is the fourth time you have been here this year, and the ninth time in the last four years."

Wait what?

"Are you currently still employed at any of these jobs we placed you at? We do have others that need work."

I was back in the job placement office, but I was still hanging from the rope. There was no color to the room, and the mare, who still did not look at me, seemed to have melted a bit. Looking down I could still see the other ponies. A hallucination, I was ready for Phobetor to attack, but this was just an odd way to do it.

"Mister Slowtrot, if your going to just sit there and not respond, I'll have to ask you to move on. We have other ponies in need of work."

I looked back at the office worker, to see that she had actually looked at me, and she had no eye. "creepy."

".krow fo deen ni seinop rehto evah eW .no evom ot uoy ksa ot evah ll'I ,dnopser ton dna ereht tis tsuj ot gniog ruoy fi ,tortwolS retsiM"

Her face started melting like wax, it falling upwards into the darkness above me. Green Flame erupted from her now exposed skull, turning the wight bone black. The walls behind her also caught fire, bathing everything around me in a sickly green glow. Crumbling, the walls gave way to the city of Applewood, also burning in green flames.

'I don't think this is a hallucination Slowtrot, not entirely!'

looking up I could see Fragment, now looking more like me, and far less like Thorn. "Then what is this?"

'If you don't know, then I don't know. But can you feel it in the air, it's electric, and pulsing. Maybe a lot of magic. We sould ask a unicorn.'

She dropped and landed on my back, there was no wait to her, but I almost yelped when she did it. Reaching out with her hoof, she swiped at the burning city. It all broke apart like wet paper in water.

'Just like that, strange?'

"Eeeeee!" the rope swayed, knocking me agents the wall. "GET THEM OUT, GET THEM OUT!"

"WHEAT GRAIN GET A HOLED OF YOURSELF!"

"OH CELESTIA I CAN FEEL THEM INSIDE OF ME!" I hit the wall again as the rope moved back and forth. "GET AWAY FROM ME, THEY WILL GET INTO YOU AS WELL!"

"WHEAT JUST CALM DOWN... WHEAT! WHEAT DAMMIT WHEAT."

I could here the distant sound of something hitting the bottom, echoing past me.

'What a way to go, at least it was fast. I think.' She pointed down at one of the tech's below me. 'You see what I see, or to be accurate, I see what you see. And I see a mare about to take a dive as well.'

Shit! "HAY, DON'T DO IT, SOME PONY STOP HER!" she fell, hitting the box, and was caught by one of the security pony below her.

"WE GOT HER! DAMN WHAT IN TARTARUS IS GOING ON HERE!"

'What indeed.'

Nopony answered him. The quiet darkness returned, almost like it was mocking us.

Whatever was making the hallucinations had fortunately stopped for the rest of the trip down. Sadly, Wheat Grains mangled corpse was what greeted us at the bottom. His back broken from falling onto a horizontal beam on the elevator, ripping his skin open, and forced some of his insides out of his mouth.

One of the techs threw up almost as soon as he saw the body. The other was out cold, she had hit her head on the box hard, and probably would not wake up anytime soon.

Two of the security ponies opened a door to get into the elevator, the light from the inside bathed the area around us, nearly blinding me. Dropping the rope through the door, the box went in first, the two security ponies soon vanished below, followed by the third security pony holding the unconscious tech. When the other tech was ready to move on, after ejecting everything from his stomach, he jumped below.

I pressed onto the broadcaster. "Cloud Bank, were at Labs D." Only wight noise filled my ear, I could hear some pony talking, but nothing to make out what they were saying. I turned off the broadcaster.

Looking down at the door below me, I knew it was already to late to turn back, but the option of taking the elevator up raged to the front of my mind. 'It's not a bad idea. It be hard for Thorn to clime her way back up. Make Labs D her tomb.'

"It's never that easy." I jumped down into the elevator, the rappelling tool keeping my descent slow and safe.

__________________________

Chapter 14 - Blood and Shadow, part 1

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 14 - Blood and Shadow, part 1

“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”

― Dalai Lama XIV

__________________________

When entering the large elevator, the normal way was impressive, but entering from above, had a super spy feel to it. A feeling that didn't last when I saw that the blood from the dead security pony had filled one of the glass boxed with the light bulb in it. 'I say it's %25 spy movie, %75 horror movie.' It gave the elevator a bit of a red light to it.

"Leave her here, if were going to get her back up safely, it's going to be by this elevator." A wight earthpony security stallion looked to be the one in charge. "You there!" he walked up to me. "Why are you even here in the first place?"

"Ahh, I'm uhh.. I'm here as support. Need me to do something, I'll do that something."

The stallion face hoofed. "so your here to be useless. This is fantastic"

"I'll be moving the box." I spoke up. "It's not a difficult job, or one that needs skill. But I bet I'm the only pony here that can do that job without compromising the group." There were three security ponies who needed to stay on guard, and one tech that we could not risk loosing. So the important job of lunging that big box down to were ever it needed to be, fell to me.

The wight security pony snorted. "Fine, but if I tell you to stay put, then stay put, if I tell you to run, run. You got that."

"Of cores." The stallion snorted and walked away from me. I didn't get the feeling that I belonged in this group, nor would we have the time to chat and get to know each other.

The four ponies were the wight stallion who was leading the group, A red unicorn security mare, a green eathpony security stallion, and the gray unicorn Tech stallion. The security ponies were armed with 10mm SMG's, and batons. The tech only had his lab coat.

Every pony checked over their guns. Turning the safety off, and putting a bullet in the chamber. I did the same, looking over the .45 pistol to get a better feel of what Musket Ball gave me. The pistol was mostly a dull gray, with a lighter gray around the mouth peace. Along the side were the barrel was, it had two words engraved onto it. "Chekhov's Promise." Placing it back into it's holster, I rook a deap breth to steady myself.

"It's all clear, so lets move" The wight pony pressed the button to open the door.

The stallion was correct, and there was no pony on the other side, except for half navy pony mare just to the side. Her upper half laid on its side, with her lower half nowhere insight. But for having half a dead pony inside, the lobby was surprising clean of any blood.

"The literal fuck!?" mister green took a step back, as did I.

'That's one we don't have to worry about'

Mister wight took a slow step forward, and then a few more. Walking up to the body He took a close look at the body. "The wound is burnt, and clean..." He shook his head. "No time for this, let's get moving." mister wight trotted to the only other door in the room. The others followed closely behind him.

I decided to take a closer look at the body. The poor mare's face looked like it was frozen in shock, or terror. Something felt familer about this, not that I seen it before but that..

Also, if some pony is even a little out of the safe zone, then zap, half of them is in one stable, and the other in the one they started in.

Emerald Fields description of how a pony could die if only a part of them was teleported didn't to the real thing justice. I can truly understand now to why they were being so careful with just getting the calibrations right. I could only guess that it was Thorn who teleported, she did have those two Unicorns with her.

I could hear the soft hiss of the door opening. "dammit slowpoke, stick with the gr.."

*Crack*

Mister wight was interrupted by a bullet to the head. The blood and gray matter reached all the way to the elevator.

The other two security pones fired back, unloading their SMG's at where the bullet came from. Mister gray jumped out of the line of fire, hiding under a bench.

I was in no danger of being shot at from my position, but I could not risk the gas being damaged so I looked around to find a hiding spot for it. Not far from me was a stack of boxes, and crates. Jumping behind them, I placed the metal box with the gas behind a very large wooden box to keep it safe.

Looking back over into the lobby, miss red and mister green had moved to the side of the door, getting themselves out of the line of fire. The room became mostly quiet, except for a humming and pulsing sound coming from deeper inside Labs D.

"HERE IT COMES!" Mister Green yelled. it wasn't until a few seconds later that the red bar showed up on my E.F.S.

*Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump*

That familiar sound made my hart raise. I pulled out my battle rifle and yelled as I armed the rifle. "IT'S A POWER ARMORED GRIFFIN, GET THE FUCK BACK!"

The two security ponies just looked at me, not moving like I said. They instead, reloaded their guns, looked back at each other, nodded to each other, jumped back into the doorway, and unloaded their SMG's.

Their action worked out as well I thought it was going to. But The griffin didn't shoot back. Instead, the griffin charged into the room. The two security ponies jumped out of its way. The griffin's armor was dented, scored, and it's helmet looked like it took a few very hard hit's to it. Somehow Leo Thunderfeathers had gotten to Lab's D before me.

The two security ponies reloaded their SMG's and fired again. Bullets ricocheted everywhere as the griffin stood there unfazed. Turning his head to Miss red, Leo walked to her. The poor mare backed up as she attempted to reload her SMG in a panic, failing to get the magazine in.

*Tap* *Thump* *Tap* *Thump* *Crack*

The griffin stumbled from a shot to it's back, and quickly turned around to look at me. Smoke rising from the barrel of my battle rife. That armor may be able to shrug off 10mm rounds, but .308 bullets seem to do the trick. Though it was strange, the shot I made seemed to have more of a kick then it had at the firing range.

"YOU!" I didn't know if this griffin had a shit list, but if he did, I would be on it.

*Crack*

A shot to the chest, and I think I only pissed Leo off more. The griffin pulled out his pistol and charged. I entered S.T.A.T.'s.

With time slowed to a crawl, I had time to think of a plan. By plan, I meant not get killed by the pissed off griffin. Hit and run was my best option, so I used my first action to attack. Looking over the Leo Thunderfeathers, his name appearing in my vision, I saw two interesting things that could help me. That was that both his head and left leg were in a real bad shape. The medical scan function may not have been meant to help in combat, but it was giving me two good targets for me to shoot at. Leo's head gave me a %50 chance of a hit, but the leg gave me an %80, so I picked the leg. My second action I chose to dash out of the way, the large and armored griffin started to look like an oncoming train.

*Crack*

I practically jumped out of Leo's path by a hairs breath, the sound of wooden boxes braking under the power armored griffin filled the room.

"YOU FUCKING PONY, I'M GOING TO SHOVE THIS GUN SO FAR UP YOUR ASS THAT YOU WILL KISS THE BARREL!" The griffin struggled to get up, throwing peaces of boxes across the room.

'I bet the Leo can do it, he looks like he could.'

The two security ponies unloaded their SMG's into the griffin again. I joined in, firing three shots at Leo, stopping before I fired the seventh round. The ammo indicator in my E.F.S. clearly showing me that I had two bullet left in the gun.

Leo got up, looked at me, and charged again. This time he was slower as he ran with a limp. I entered S.T.A.T. again, his head now gave a %85 for a hit. I picked it. Twice.

*Crack* *Crack*

The griffin stumbled over, slowing down, but didn't stop. I had made a mistake abandoning the hit and run plan. Grabbing me by the belt of my gun holster, the rifle fell from my hooves. Up close I could see that his helmet had been so shot up now, that one of his eyes were exposed. That eye looked beyond pissed off. I could feel the barrel of his gun placed next to my head, but I didn't dare to look.

"Got a name pony, I'll be sure to etch it onto my armor after I kill you."

The two security ponies jumped onto the griffins back. The gun went off, grazing my cheek, and making my ear ring as though I just used my head to ring a school bell.

The mare flew across the room, and the stallion hit the ground hard. I just flung around like a rag doll in the griffins grasp. In an up close battle, nopony stood a chance.

The brief fight was enough time for my S.T.A.T.'s to recharge. Musket ball knew what he was doing when making this program. "The names Slowtrot." the Leo slowly turned his head back to me, and I entered S.T.A.T.'s. I picked the fist action to draw Chekhov's Promise, and the second to fire it into Leo's eye. It gave me a %20 to hit, but if it said it was possible, I had to take it.

Time quickly returned to normal up, and I saw as my gun levitate up to the Leo's head. "That's a stupid na..."

*BAM*

The pistol flew behind me, and Leo fell to the ground. His vise like grip let me go when we hit the ground. Their was no cures on my name, no last breath, Leo had simply fallen over, like I just turn his power switch off. Now that I think about it, I did just that, I was called killing.

'It must be the helmet, probably makes offing the basters much easier then when you did it to the mare.'

I didn't answer Fragment. If I was going crazy, I didn't want the others to know it.

'Suit yourself, but it's better to be crazy and alive, then sane and dead. Just saying.'

Looking around, The gray tech pony came out of his hiding spot. "wh.. wh.. where..."

"The griffin?" I looked back at the dead navy pony, giving me a simple and very troubling answer. "Thorn must have teleported him in." I was expecting Thorn and a hoof full of navy ponies to deal with. That alone was a realy bad situation to deal with. But Thorn could teleport ponies in, which meant she had an army at her hoof tips, right in the stable.

Looking for my pistol, it hadn't gone far from me after it flew off. The fall hadn't don anything to scratch it, but blood had gotten on it. I didn't know if it was from the griffin, or from the wight stallion, but I quickly wiped it off and placed the gun in my bag, pushing it to the bottom.

The Tech backed up, shook his head, and bolted to the elevator. I just watched, panic was a natural reaction, so how was I going to calm him down. "I'll go get help, we can't.."

*Crack*

The tech slumped over, the top of his head splattered on the elevator button.

*Ding*

The door to the elevator closed, and I could hear it leave me behind.

Six Navy ponies rushed in, six battle rifles pointed at me. "Oh! Did you all see that! I activated the elevator with a bullet, and right through that traitors head!" It was the cold, and sadistic voice of a mare. I immediately felt a deep pit in the bottom of my stomach.

Thorn stepped into the lobby with a swagger and a grin. Her eyes scanned the room, stopping at me, and raised an eyebrow. "Now who might you be?" her eyes moved from me to Leo's dead body. "if you did that, then good, that griffin was charging way to much." her eyes moved back to me. "now answer me."

"Slowtrot, my name's Slowtrot." Killing the griffin was luck, something I was not going to have with her.

"Slowtrot... yes, yes, I remember now... You sould be dead, twice over now if I'm correct." she turned around and waved a hoof "Take him. If there are other, shoot them."

A stallion much bigger then me steeped over to me. Within a second, his hoof met my head, and everything faded to darkness.

__________________________

I was sitting at a long wooden table. To my left everything was bright and sunny, through the windows I could see the trees swaying in the wind. Two my right, the wood of the table looked worn, the windows were shattered, and the trees were bare and black.

I looked up to see Fragment at the other end of the table. In her hooves was Chekhov's Promise. "you know how to use this right?" I nodded. "tell me." I shook my head. "Were not going to play this game again Slowtrot. We don't have time for it." she slid Chekhov's Promise, the gun scratched at the wood as it made it's way to me. "Now tell me."

I sighed. "Fine, but it don't change anything Fragment." picking up the gun in my hooves, and looked her in the eyes. Her eyes were now my eyes, a dusty gray. "You kill with it"

Fragment smiled. "That's right, you kill, and you kill, and you kill." her grin was so wide that it reached ear to ear. "You don't stop killing until you are killed yourself."

I could hear gunshot in the distance to my right, it was faint, but echoed. To my left was a rumbling, and a slight flash of bright green just beyond the trees. "Or I can simply stop, I don't have to kill. Not if I don't want to." the glass to my left shatter inwards, shards imbedding into the table. "This world is not about killing."

Fragment didn't loos her grin as she tilted her head. "Then the jokes on you Slowtrot. That gun right there is proof of it; Chekhov's Promise. It means that If you pull that gun out, you are making a promising to shoot it. Now on that note, you sould go and wake yourself up. A promise is a promise."

The room caught on fire, the green flames melted the glass, and turned the table to ash. Placing the barrel of the gun in my mouth, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.

__________________________

My eyes shot open, and I found myself wishing that everything was all a nightmare. Of coarse the dream before was the nightmare, and this was reality. My head head pounding from being knocked unconscious was a good indicator that I was awake.

Thorn was sitting behind a desk in front of me. Flipping through some papers, I didn't know of what, but I bet they were important. My gun; Chekhov's Promise, was on the desk being used as a paperweight. I could only hope that having it out meant I would end up shooting Thorn with it, but with my luck, it meant that she'd shoot me with it.

To my side was her lieutenants, both holding some nasty looking batons in their magic.

"Not drowning puppy's, I'm shocked."

She placed the papers down, and smiled. "Funny that. A lover of mine gave me a puppy once. It shit and pissed all over the floor, and one day it wonder off the ship. We happened to be at sea at the time." She pulled a folder in front of her, and opened it. "Now pleasantry's aside, I'm going to ask you a questions, your going to give me answers."

"Can I get a glass of water first?" I screamed and spasm as one of the lieutenants struck me with the baton. It turned out to be a stun baton, and it hurt almost as bad is it felt to be shot.

"You only get questions, and you only give answers. First off I want to know how you are even alive. My 2600 was set to kill a pony, so then, how are you here?"

"Well I think my parents had too much cider one..."

A stun baton stun baton hit me again, replacing my attempt at snark with screams and spasms. Thorn didn't say anything, just stared at me.

"June saved me, she tracked me down not long after I put it on, and somehow shut down the pipbuck before it killed me."

Thorn smiled. "Now was that so hard. Next question. They made alterations to the pipbuck, and you had it on for a time. What do you know about the alterations."

What did she want, if she was teleporting ponies here, that she could take the stable already. But she wanted to know about the pipbuck 2600? The stun baton stabled my thoughts, my face slammed into the desk in the spasm. "uhh... they gave the pipbuck levitation, and a VI."

"Is that all?"

What the fuck did she want? "yes, that's it." Thorn waved a hoof, and I felt the stun baton again.

"Now I've done this for a long time now, and I know when some pony is lying to me, or not telling me everything I want to know. It's annoying realy, sometimes I just can't get them to give me what I want." She waved her hoof again, and the stun baton hit me again. "Do you know how much torture a pony can take until they tell me everything I want to know?" I shook my head. "well they will tell me what I want to here with only a little bit of it, but will die with the truth just to spite me." The stun baton hit me again. "But I know one reliable way around that. So do your best to not think about the pipbucks modifications. It just makes it more fun to see you squirm."

My head slammed on the desk as the two unicorns held me down. I could feel a slight tingling in my head that became a burning sensation which burrowed into my skull. Something was in my head, reaching out and feeling everything. I wanted to get them off, to scream, to pull whatever was in my head out, but I was paralyzed.

Images flashed in my head, all clear as day. Collapsing on my floor when the pipbuck was killing me. Fist meeting June, the pipbuck research team, and that creepy video made by Scootaloo. Accidentally hitting Emerald with the coffee cup after the levitation spell was installed. Naming it Iron Buck in front of the Foals. The plan to connect the all the stables with teleportation spells, and the later teleportation tests. Even when I handed it over to Healing Herb.

The violation finally stopped, and the feeling in my head retracted. "Teleportation mam." one of the lieutenants spoke out loud. The other fell to the floor. 'Play with the minotaur, and get the horns.'

"that's it?"

"Yes mam!"

There was a pause, a very uncomfortably pause. The humming and puling of Labs D seamed to consume everything, as I waited for the inevitable.

"Lift his head."

I felt magic hold me up, and some pole placed under my chin. I had a strong feeling it was the stun baton.

"Now Slowtrot, It seams that I over estimated how much you know. Do you know what that means right,?"

"You will let me go?" She was going to kill me, so out of fear I tried to smile, but smile hurt.

"No, no, I can't do that. You did work with these traitors, and killed my mercenary." She lend back in her chair.

"So your going to kill me then?"

"No, no, something better. You are not a member of Stable-Tec, which means you can still be saved." She leaned foreword, and grinned. "If you do a little favor for me, Then I'll do a big favor for you."

I didn't like this, I pulled what little straight I still had, and sat up in the chair. "What favor?" okay, talking hurt right now.

She sat back. "I'll see that you will be taken into custody, as a civilian, you will be seen as a victim in all this. Saved by my actions, and be given compensation for your trauma. Stable-Tec is a wealthy company, so don't be surprised when you get a few million bits."

So I get out alive, and get paid a ton. It would be a tempting offer If I didn't know who Thorn was, or who she had killed. "and... I do what?"

She pushed Chekhov's Promise over to me. "Bring me Healing Herbs."

I had to ask, I could not help myself. "And what would stop me from helping Healing Herbs?"

*Click*

A heavy collar was placed around my neck, and it beeped.

"Oh, I think this will be enough to convince toy to help me over her. That is if you can survive being decapitated."

May Luna fuck me thru from ass to mouth with her hoof. I was working for Thorn if I liked it or not. 'At least you got to keep the gun.' Ya maybe I could shoot myself just to spite her.

__________________________

Footnote:

%50 to level up.

Chapter 15 - Blood and Shadow, part 2

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 15 - Blood and Shadow, part 2

“No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes."

― Plato

__________________________

I had to wonder what came first, a millinery corrupt enough to let a psychopath like Thorn in charge, or Thorn being able to spread her insanity so well that it corrupted the military. The fact the she had a bomb collar at the ready, and it was made by the Luna's government, told me that it was both.

Thorn had been able to bring a small army down here by teleporting her troops into Labs D directly, making the lock-down of the stable a fruitless effort. Meany of the navy ponies I saw at first had standard uniform on, but further into the less then friendly crowd, combat armor became a more common sight. What struck me was how much the armor didn't looked like military standard. The armor they had on looked well used, covers in scratches, dents, and some rust, but it was also painted over in loud colors, vulgar words, and kill count. I didn't look twice to check, but I thought I saw one armor adorn with bones.

Stepping through the organized chaos, I could feel the humming and pulsing now, not just hear it. It all made me anxious, as though some force was closing in around me.

"Hay stable pony, Lets have a quicky!" A pegusus mare in strip down combat armor walked in front of me. "I always get a bit antsy before a raid, and the blokes here like to bite back." She didn't blink once as she talked, giving me a good look at her eyes, the pupils seemingly a bit to small to be normal.

"Umm... sorry... but Thorn want's me..."

She hit me in the face with a hoof. "I said a quickly, not a damned marathon. Now get on your back!" she growled as she talked.

There was a laughter in the room that made my stomach churn. Laughter that suddenly cut off.

"Now, now, there will be time for that later, do understand that Petty Officer?" Thorns voice cut through the room. Every pony had stopped to salute.

The pegusus mare had jumped out of my way to saluted Thorn. "MAM YES MAM!"

"Then carry on, you to Slowtrot." I didn't look back, or make much of a sound. I just walked passed the group of insane navy ponies.

__________________________

One big advantage for a stable if it were to ever come under attack was how easy it is to defend. The reason why Thorn's troops had not taken Healing Herbs was simply because every part of a stable was a bottle neck for the navy ponies. The long hallway to where Healing Herbs was had the body's of navy ponies and stable ponies littering the floor. Bullet casings chattered and sloshed under my hooves, and every few steps I had to step over a body.

Picking up a battle rifle, I check my inventory to find that I still had all the ammo I was given by Musket Ball. The ammo was called .308 JSP hand load, compared to the ammo in the navy pony which was just a normal .308. I also checked the ammo for my pistol, it was called .45 super hand load by the pipbuck. So I put the battle rifle into my holster, and slowly walked to what was now becoming a bright light.

"STAY BACK! OR.. OR WE WILL SHOOT!" The light that was glaring into the hallway hid the pony who was shouting. His voice was of an old stallion and had the thick accent of Prance.

"Don't shoot, look, he's one of us!" This time it was the voice of a not as elderly mare, with the same thick Prance accent.

"It's a trick Maple Curie, and you know it."

"Then why don't we ask the buck Hazel Becquerel! Unless you are willing to shoot him before finding out."

I cleared my through to get their attention. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk with Healing Herbs. If I don't, Thorn is going to set off this bomb collar."I touched the collar with my pipbuck, making a clang sound.

There was some sound of whispering before the stallion spoke up. "Alright, but you leave that rifle with us." I pulled out the empty rifle, and slid it to them. "Okay, now just walk slowly, no sudden moves."

What had been blinding me was a bunch of floodlights attached to some spark battery. From all the broken glass littering the floor, the lights had been shot out a few times before. Hazel Becquerel was an old Earthpony stallion with an impressive beard, though didn't seem to have the same kind of confidence holding the rifle that Musket ball did. Maple Curie was a younger Earthpony mare, but much older then me, mare with a radiation suit on, covering all but her head. To the side was another Earthpony stallion who was bandaged up and on the floor, he looked to be around the same age as Maple.

"Is he ok?" I pointed with my hoof at the stallion on the floor. It was not the most pressing problem, but the other two looked beyond worried, and I though that showing a little concern would help them trust me. Well trust my more then having a the bomb collar on.

Hazel Becquerel looked to the stallion, and back to me. "Pie Curie? He will be fine. Took a bullet about an hour ago, I got him patch up and told him to get some sleep. His wife here has not shut up about it for the hole hour."

Maple then exchanged words with Hazel in the prance language. I didn't know what they were saying, but both sides sounded stressed. During their argument, I took the time to glance around more. The three of them were the only living ponies in this room at the end of the hall. A door in the room looked firmly closed, with two terminals on ether side.

"Were are the other ponies? Where's Healing Herbs?"

Hazel stopped his argument with Maple to sigh. "She's on the other side of the door, but It's locked, and we've been leaf out here to die. There were others here with us, but the damn monsters shot them all when they treed to run for it."

"Can't we open the door?"

Hazel shook his head. "Not without the pipbuck of another member of the senor staff, I have one, am but one pony." He waved his 3100, in an annoyed manner. "How could they just leave us to die out here."

Damnit, so close, yet so far... or maybe not! "Would June's pipbuck work?"

"June's? You mean the lead pipbuck Developer? if you have it, then... oh my... not June." Hazel's face drooped.

This time I was the one to sigh, pulling out Junes pipbuck from my bag. "Thorn killed her on when she was escorting me out of the stable. I came down here to get a pony from the senor staff, some pony needs to take over the stable."

"I see, but with the navy in the way, I don't see how that is possible?"

I looked over at the door and tapped the bomb collar. "trust me, I don't see a way ether. But if there is a way out of this, It's in there." That is, I hoped that there was a way out in there.

'After all the evil was released into the world, the only thing left in the pithos was hope.'

__________________________

June's Pipbuck pulled through for us, just like a skeleton key. The door to the hallway closed, trapping us inside, and we were hit by steam from all sides. Sanitation is what Maple called it. A jet of steam hit my flank, and I nearly hit the ceiling.

As we waited for the sanitation to pass, Hazel told me what his job here was. He oversaw most of the research into magical radiation, and how to protect from it and how to clean it. But it was Maple who was the backbone of the research team, not only being the one to first identify magical radiation, but also non-magical radiation. I asked to what non-magical radiation was, but most of the words they used to explain I didn't understand. What I did understand was that unlike magical radiation, non-magical radiation was much safer to work with, and had many potential application. She also stated that it was a brand new field of science, so the long term effects were still unknown unlike with magical radiation. For me, if it had the word radiation on it, I didn't want it near me.

The steam stopped, and the doors made a soft hiss before opening. The humming and pulsing that was already loud, now went up to eleven, along with the sould of cracking bolts of electricity. I had to shield my eyes from the overly lit up room, that was overly made worse from the electric bolts. What was wost of all was the smell that hit me like a wall. To put it the best as I can: take the smell of ocean side rot, mixed with sewage, chemical cleaner, and a hint days old burnt food. it was far worse then that. My stomach revolted, but their was nothing left in me to puke. The others did the same, dry heaving before regaining their composer.

The worst part of all this, was that I remember this room. It was what Phobetor showed me when we first met. Standing at the center was Healing Herbs, the pipbuck 2600 on her left leg, and she was glaring at me with burning gold eyes.

The four of us pushed ourselves in, and the door shut itself behind us.

Healing Herbs walked out from the center, putting on a cheer smile. up close she looked a bit taller then I remembered, and a bit darker. Phobetor was not fooling me, but I might as well play along until we found a way out of here.

Hazel said something to himself, and had the look of shear disgust on his face. Stepping forward, we all followed behind him.

Healing Herbs gave me a look of annoyance, then paned her eyes over to Hazel with a happier look before trotting over to him.. "Good to see your alive Hazel, I was worried." she looked over the four of us. "Where's Pine?"

"She's dead Herbs. You could have opened up the door at any time, but you left us out there! What in Tartarus is going on!" Hazel stomped his hoof on the ground, and it echoed for seconds.

Healing Herbs scrunched her face. "What IS going on, IS that were save the lives of every pony in equestria! No not just equestria, or just every pony, we will save so many more. Soon everything will return to how it sould have been, no war, no death, and not megaspells."

Hazel took a deep breath, which resulted in him coughing do to how foul the air was in here. "So you made this, it may not be my area of profession, but it doesn't take a megaspell expert to see what this it. What is it for Herbs? Bring back the dead, neutralizing all magic, or is it just a bigger megaspell bomb! I thought you were better then this."

Healing Herbs laughed. The laugh echoed and warped. "Better then this, this is why Stable-Tec took me in. They wanted their own megaspell and I didn't just do that, I did better!"

I looked around the room, it was like how I saw it in the dream. except there many unicorns standing around with their horns aglow, and the back half of a pony, it looked like the other half of the dead mare in the lobby.

Hazel and the other two had taken a step back. "what did you make Herbs."

She rotated her hoof. "Oh nothing much. I just made a time traveling megaspell. With it I can just jump into the past, and prevent the war from even happening."

"Impossible!" Hazel looked confused and shocked.

Healing Herbs horn it up, and Hazel found himself behind us. "Not anymore. Oh time magic on it's own is limited, but open a portal to a different world, and another portal from that world to the past of ours, add some teleportation." She smiled. "Then you get honest to goddess working time travel."

The portals! I had forgotten about them. Emerald told me how Labs D had been working on them. If they can make portals here, then that was our hope!

"Impossible!" Hazel had taken a step foreword, looking Healing Herbs in the eye's "And your an idiot for even thinking that it was possible."

A golden glow enveloped Healing Herbs horn, and she grinned. Activated S.T.A.T. and time... Time flipped the fuck out! I could see Healing herbs move in five different ways, and Hazel become an unrecognizable blur. The Curie's were flying back, smashing into the coils, and bring shocked by the electricity. The tactical screen was not working, but when I concentrated, I could move my legs. The sensation was odd, like my enter body was asleep, as I pushed myself between Healing Herbs and Hazel.

Deactivating S.T.A.T. Hazel stumbled backward, and the golden glow on Herbs horn vanished. "That was new" I shook my head, trying to get the asleep feeling out of my neck. "Before any pony dose anything rash, may I make a suggestion?" No pony answered me, so I took it as a yes. "If you can make portals here, then can you make one to the overmares office?"

Healing Herbs scoffed. "yes, but what's the point in doing that?"

I had to think fast. Convincing Healing Herbs to do anything was going to be a problem... Except Phobetor was probably in charge. "To keep the stable safe. If Hazel take's control of the stable, then he can get rid of Thorn. With Thorn gone, you will have more time to test out the spell before saving the world with it." The translation was that, if Phobetor sent Hazel to help keep the stable safe, then she will have an easier time taking over the stable.

There was another pause. Healing herbs looked back at a large box like room on the wall. I guessed it was were all the controls were. "yes, that sounds right." she waved a hoof, and two ponies in the box moved about.

Hazel stumbled back to all fours. "You cant be serous!"

"Hazel just trust me. Go help the stable, theirs nothing you can do here. But you can do something up there."

At the center of the room the air itself seamed to tear. It opened up, and in it I could see Emerald Fields, and Cloud Bank. The too looked back at me in shock.

"You three just go!" Hazel and the others gave me a look resignation before walking to the portal. This was over all of our heads, but at least I knew why.

Turning on my Broadcaster I sighed. "Thorn has teleported her army into Labs D. I don't see a way to fix it, but with Hazel you all have a chance."

"The fuck is going on Slowtrot, and what about Healing herbs, and you? Oh I don't care, get over here now." Cloud Bank came in loud and clear.

"Sorry but I can't. Thorn put a bomb collar on me, said she'd let me go If I get Healing Herbs for her. Shes probably going to kill me no matter what happens." I turned the broadcaster off, and watched as the three others safely made their way through the portal. Turning to Healing Herbs, I gave her a little wave. "You can drop the act now Pobetor."

The portal closed with a snap, and the madmare look of Healing Herbs dropped to a neutral irritated look.

"I see that you remember... How much?"

I smiled. "everything"

She frowned. "Impossible, I took all that was important, even the memory's about me."

I laughed. "Your not as smart as you think you are. But then if you were, you would never have been beaten by Celestia and thrown into Tartrus!"

A wave of magic hit me, sending me sliding across the floor. "THOU WAS NEVER PRIVETED SUCH KNOWLEDGE!" her voice echoed for over five seconds before fading.

I struggled to get back up on all fours, but all the abuse was starting to catch up to me. I was a slightly overweight average pony, and now my muscles were starting to scream at me to give up. "Pipbucks are fascinating things. don't you think?"

Phobetor lifted me up in her magic. "Looks like I will just have to strip that knowledge from you again. But this time leave you with nothing."

The sound of a radio cracking, braking a tense stair I was having with Pobetor. "Oh hello Healing Herbs, or whatever you are calling yourself." It was Thorn, and she was talking thorough the bomb collar. "So you did make a megaspell chamber, Just like the O.I.A. thought. And Here I was worried it was going to be some pathetic teleportation spell. Glade that it's the former."

Pobetor dropped me. "The insolent one speak, have you forgotten my answer?"

"I remember not hearing a no. Miss Healing Herbs, your talents are wasted here, If you'd just come with me, you will have anything you ever wanted."

"I want to strip every secret from your mind, and leaving but a husk."

Laughter cackled from the collar. "So that's it then, I will enjoy seeing you be raped repeatedly as we extricate everything about megaspelss from your head."

"enough of this." Wave of magic hit me again, the bomb collar was cut from my neck, and sent flying. It exploded with a pop. "And now for you, one can never have enough drones."

I hit S.T.A.T.'s and time freaked out again, but this time something was different. Next to Healing Herbs was a mare who looked like a female version of myself. "It's time Slowtrot" It was Fragment.

"Time for what? Fragment, what is it time for?"

She lifted her hoof and rotated it. Her movement looked like braking glass that reformed onto itself, making the leg shimmer. "You know what. It's the only thing you can do to stop her. Well, probably not the only thing. But ask yourself this. How smart are you, and how much time do you have to come up with a better solution?"

"I have plenty of time right now."

Everything shifted, and I was back in the whorehouse. June was on the ground, and Thorn with a gun to her head. "It's true that you have time to think, but what action can you take with that time." It shifted again to the security. A line of bullets were going through Under Brush's back legs, the bullets coming from the griffins minnigun. "Time in S.T.A.T. is not real time." Another shift and I was back in the lobby, looking at myself shooting the battle rifle at leo's back. "When you have more real time, you have more options." Everything returned to the megaspell chamber, but now I was standing in front of Healing Herbs.

"So I have to stop Phobetor, but how?"

Fragment put her hoof into my bag. "You remember the tale of nightmare moon. How Luna become possessed and had to be banished to the moon. Now imagine a new Nightmare moon, one who is hidden from the light, and with access to the future of Equestria." Checkoffs Promise was placed in front of me, floating just before face.

"Could I just brake the magaspell chamber?"

"Can you doge a wave of magic?"

"I could knock her out."

"She's already asleep."

"FUCK THIS, FUCK YOU!"

"And in the end you will do it."

I could not let Phobetor roam free, of which she needed Healing Herbs body to do it. I could not let Thorn gain knowledge of megaspells, of which she needed Healing Herbs to do it.

I wanted to say that my gut churned, that I it was the hardest thing to do in the world. That I hesitated just a second befor shooting. Nut I was in S.T.A.T.'s and after taking the gun in my mouth, I selected to shoot it, twice. Right into Healing Herbs heart.

*Bang* *Bang*

I put Checkoffs Promise back into my bag, and looked back at Photabor. Two golden eyes looked at me with shock, and then the gold was gone. The minty green eyes of Healing Herbs blinked, filling up with tears. She fell to the ground.

"I did it again didn't I. I... I messed everything up. I always mess everything up."

I sat down next to her, her berthing slowly become shallow, blood dripping from her mouth and chest. I didn't know what to say, or do. So I just sat there, and let her talk.

"It was all my fault. I suggested that.. that if one unicorn can heal with a spell. Then five can make a bigger spell. We made the strongest healing spell to ever exist... and look at what happened." she coughed up blood. "I... I only wanted... to.. help." Her breathing now had a gargling sound to it, and tears soaked her coat. "Please... don't let her take it... she will kill so many..."

I took a deep breath, and looked her in the eyes. She looked back at me. "Don't worry, I will not let have this. It's a promise." Healing Herbs closed her eyes, and simply stopped breathing. She she had died, and now... now I was crying.

Getting back onto my hooves, I galloped over to the control box. Pushing the ponies inside out of the way, I looked over the control board, as froze. How the fuck do I work this!

A hoof puled me to the side, and I found myself staring at a corpse... a fucking walking corps! Part of it's face was missing, and blood stained it's stable barding red. It's voice gargled, and made sounds until it formed words. "I will not... let a simpleton... best me!" It was Phobetor, she was controlling the dead pony. So I struck it hard with my hoof, and navy bucked the other as it came from behind. Knocking both of them out of the box.

I couldn't just randomly flip switches, and hope for the best. But I knew nothing about nothing about megaspell chambers... But I did know a bunch a smart ponies.

I swiched on the broadcaster. "How do I make a megaspell chamber explode, but without the explosion?"

Cloud Banks voice came up "You mean an imposition? Wait, what are you doing down there?"

The two corpses were getting up, and were now being joined by others. I pulled out Checkoffs Promise and fired five shots at them, but it didn't do much, so I put the gun back in my bag.

"Well I'm trying to keep an ancient Nightmare from escaping from Tarturs. And trying to keep and insane admiral from gaining access to a megaspell chamber. The salutation for both happens to be the same thing."

There was the sound of a scuffle from the other side. Emerald Fields spoke up. "This is insane Slowtrot, Just get Healing Herbs to open a portal agen, and get out of there!"

"She's dead, now tell me how to do this implosion thing or I start flipping switches" Closing the little door to the box didn't help much to stop the zombies.

"I will see you suffer! Suffer as I strangle all light from the world!"

"What the fuck was that!"

"Emerald meet Phobetor, one pissed off nightmare controlling a bunch of dead bodys!" I bucked another zombie, but now they were packing into each other, so the one I hit just dangled there. "So some help!"

"Shit, I have no fucking clue... Wait! That might work. You still have Junes pipbuck right, if you can plug it into a tuerminal, I sould be able to control of it from here."

Looking over the control pannal, It had the ports I needed. One of the zombies got in, so I entered S.T.A.T.'s time was still messed up, but the tactical options were working normally now. With luck, the options to pull out, and attach the pipbuck was there. So with the persuasion of a unicorn, I plugged the pipbuck in.

The Zombies were now getting too close for comfort, so I ran over then and out of the box, and hit the floor. My body still hurt like fuck all over. Luckily the zombies were slow, so even limping, I was able to put some distance between me and them.

"It's in, Just don't tell me I have to get back into the box. It's full of moving corpses."

"What did you say, no, never mind that. Your fine, I sould be able to adjust the controls from here. You need to grab the 2600, and use it's teleportation spell. I'm sending a signal to it, so just activate the spell and you will teleport right into the overmare office." The pulsing of the room became far more faster, and the humming died down. I didn't know what it meant, but I had to guess it was Emerald at work.

I felt a sudden pull, looking over I saw some random junk be pulled to the center of the room. Shaking it off, I pushed myself over to Healing Herbs body. The 2600 had loosen it's grip on her leg, and was off. I tried to turn it on, but nothing would work. "Fuck!"

"What's wrong?"

"I think I have to put the 2600, fucking protective programming!"

"You will suffer greatly!"

"Oh shut... FUCK!"

Two black claw reached out from the center of the room, and began to push open a black hole in the floor. Now the pull to the center of the room was even stronger, pulling even some of the zombies in.

"What's going on"

I pulled the 2600 off of Healing Herbs body, and slipped it onto my right leg, and pushed down the lock.

"You better do that imposition thing soon, because host or no host, Phobetor is braking out of Tartarus right now!" I saw Healing Herbs pipbuck 3100 clamped onto her barding. Fingering it be useful once I was back in the overmares office, took it and threw it into my bag.

My vision blurred for a second, and a sharp pain went throughout my right leg, and moved through my body. The asshole of a pipbuck was back on.

Suddenly the pull to the center became much stronger, and I started to slide. The corpses were all now were being dragged to the center of the room. The containers of rainbow liquid cracked, and some burst. Pushing myself back to the control box, I used it to get myself stable, and started to sift through the programs.

The pulsing had become so fast that it was now just another humming, and the electric bolts were now just a solid chain. With a bang, the door to the hallway bust open, and one of Thorns troops jumped in, only to slide on the ground, and into the hole. The suction had became so strong, and blood and trash were being sucked in like a vacuum.

"Slowtrot, get out of there! Where ever the portal is sending everything, it's about to send everything back!"

"Just a moment, I need to send something before I go." Getting up, I plugging in the 2600 into the terminal. Selecting the files that Phobetor stole from the overmares office, I uploaded them to the terminal. "I just put some files out, do you see them?"

"Yes, but some of it looks corrupted. Just get out of their now!"

"Right, I'm activating the teleportation spell!"

Emerging from the black hole was the head of a massive black dragon, one of its golden eyes were as big as myself. She opened her massive maw, and slowly moved towards me. The inside of her mouth looked like a endless abyss of darkness. I literally pissed myself.

Hitting S.T.A.T.'s one last time, everything stopped. Selecting the teleportation spell, It latched onto a signal Emerald that I could only guess was what Emerald had set. I pressed enter.

"Not without me!" Black hooves wrapped around my neck, and everything faded to darkness!

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Footnote:

Quest Complete: End of Time.

--------54\/3 pH1L3 (0rrUP73D--------

Chapter 16 - A Light in the Darkness

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

Chapter 16 - A Light in the Darkness

"I say there is no darkness but ignorance."

―William Shakespeare

__________________________

Slowly opening my eyes, the first think I took note of was that I was not in the overmares office. The second, my pipbuck lamp was the only light in the room. The third, it was that I recognized this place, which made me feel confused. I was sitting at the bar in Sleepy Hooves Diner, though everything was dark, and looked rundown.

Their was a purple earthpony mare behind the counter, she was looking in the other direction, giving me a good look at her flank as she moved her hips, humming a song that I could not make out. Her mane and tail were pale blue with a jade-green streak in it, the mare's cutie mark was that off a hoof shoe with an exclamation point going through it. I gave myself a little slap, and it hurt a little. Fragment was outside the dream now, which didn't make any sense.

"Fragment, what's going on?"

She stopped, and turned herself around. She had a smirk on her face. "Don't know. I was looking for some food, but if it hasn't turned to stone, its turned to dust." Walking around the counter, she took a seat next to me. "And I so wanted to try a hay burger. Not that we could cook it if we wanted to. No power or gas."

I starched out my neck, and legs. they all made a poping sound as I loosened up. "Bummer. so how did we get here, I mean this can't be Sleepy Hooves Diner?" The place certainly looked like it, but everything looked worn down, and colorless. No color at all, just different shades of wight, black, and gray.

Fragment shook her head. "Don't think so, I even took a quick peek outside. Long story short, there is no Applewood out there. Just a hole lot of nothing."

Looking at the window, she was right, all I could see was inky blackness. The windows would shake now and then, and what sounded like light hail wrapped on it.

It turned on the radio, on my pipbuck. The motions felt awkward with the 2600 on my right leg. Making a tapping sound every time pipbuck hit pipbuck. The gave nothing, not even static, I turned on the auto tracking, but it found nothing.

"Where are we, there can't be just nothing out there?"

Fragment crossed her hooves. "Well, when we first arrived, I did feel another come with us, we two others come with us."

"Let me guess, one was Phobetor." She nodded. "But then who the other?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. But if we find them, they might be able to give us some answers, maybe they know a way out."

"But were to start." We couldn't just run out in a random direction and find this pony.

A sharp pop and crack came from a window at the front of the door. The windows were warping inwards like something was pressing agent it. The wrapping became far more constant, and I could see what looked like a black fog on the other side. Well not so much as see, but feel it on the other side.

"Well I suggest we start by going out the back door." I nodded at the suggestion.

As we bolted to the back of the diner, and out the back door. I could hear the sound of braking glass, wining metal, and snapping wood. Looking back as we ran, the Diner collapsed in on itself.

__________________________

The landscape outside was simply a bleak dark on darker, with only some hills to brake up the mostly flat horizon. What ever destroyed the diner was following us, slowly, but still there moving our way. In the distance ahead of us we could see a faint light, so we galloped to it.

My body didn't feel as in pain as I ran, mostly just numb. I considered that a good thing right now, not wanting to question why I didn't feel like shit anymore. "What do you think that thing was, could it have been Phobetor?"

"Probably, do you know of anything else that likes to move as a big black fog?" Fragment had a point. If that was Phobetor, then she didn't feel like talking anymore. I couldn't blame her, after what I did.

"Well if she catches up to us, we need a plan to deal with her."

Fragment laughed. "Don't worry I already have one, we just need to find that other pony."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's good to know, care to tell me what it is?"

She shook her head. "It's a surprise." I didn't feel like prying, so I turned my focus back to were that light was.

The Light we had ran to turned into a large hospital building. The was light coming from one window near the top floor. The building had three letters on it "M.O.P." We didn't wast time, jumping into the building, and moving what we could to block off the door.

"Kind of like the horror movies, don't you think." Fragment helped me push a desk in front of the door as she spoke. "Big dark hospital, some monster trying to get at us, what do you think they call this movie."

I had to think about that for a moment. "Medical Nightmare maybe." Fragment shook her head, and I had to agree. "We can think of movie names later, we have to find this other pony first, then deal with Phobetor." Fragment placed a few more chairs on the barricade, and each time she went back to grabbed another one, she would fade into the dark. I was the sole light source in this place.

Fragment stopped when she saw that I was looking at her. "What's up, Is their something wrong?"

I sighed. "You sould probably stay close to me until we find another light source. Everything is just too dark here."

She nodded, and we moved deeper into the hospital. It was not long until we heard the sound of Phobetor banged on the door from the outside. So we added a few light barricades that we had to pass through. The sooner we find this pony, the better.

I have nothing agents hospitals, but this one creeped me out to no end. Each room had manikin ponies in them, all dressed up as doctors, nurses, and patients. Room by room had a different seen, with doctors looking over patients, and nurses helping doctors. Fragment burst out into laughter when she opened up a closet to find two manikin ponies with disheveled nurse uniforms.

The second floor was much of the same, but this time we found a closet with only one manikin pony in it. I had to push fragment along before she cracked any jokes about it.

On our way to the third floor, the sound of smashing wood, and braking glass echoed behind us. We decided to not waist any more time rushed search. As it turned out, we were wasting out time even looking in the rooms, as light from under the door stuck out in all the darkness. The problem was that it happened to be the only door locked in this hole place.

The sound of bending metal, and cracking tile got closer, and Fragment started to panic. Knocking vigorously on the door, I was worried she was going to put a hoof through it. "Any pony in there, let us in, let us in now, pleas!" She took a step back from the door, and looked at me. "I'll get it open." I just watched as she got herself into a runners position, her head low, and flank up high. Once again I found it cute, but I was also a bit worried about her hurting herself. It must be how much she looked like me now, but I came to the conclusion that I was not a bit attracted to her, she was just cute, and that was it.

Charging at the door, it opened right before Fragment hit it, sending her flying in and crashing into what ever was inside. "Ow!.. what are you, insane!" The voice sounded very familiar, and in taking a look I was surprised to see Healing Herbs on the floor, tangled with Fragment.

"Your alive?" I helped her get back on her hooves, leaving Fragment on the floor. "but how, I.. I.."

"Shot me, yes I remember that." she patted some dust off her lab cote. "Don't worry, I don't blame you from my death. I don't think I could live with myself after what she made me do. What she tricked me into doing. no I tricked myself, it's as simple as that."

The sound of metal scraping on glass was now much closer, and I quickly shut the door, Healing Herbs locked it. "We can have the pity party later. But right now we need to know if there is a way home, if you know one I mean."

The room I was in was not big, more like a small library. A small candle on a desk was the only light in the room other then my pipbuck, it flicker as though threatening to go out at any time.

Healing Herbs sat in a chair, and opened up a book with her magic. "If I were to guess, you sould just do the same thing that got you here. You teleported with the pipbuck right, well just do the same thing to get back. All you need is a signal for it to follow, but there is no grantee were you will end up on the other side. So be careful with that."

This was good news, it meant we already had half of what we needed to get out of here. "What about you? You can't stay here, Phobetor is ripping her way up here."

"I'm already dead Slowtrot. You know that, so just get out of here as soon as you can."

I shook my head. "not buying it, your here talking to me, that means you are still alive right now. So unless you can give me a better explanation to why you have to stay, I'm taking you with me."

"Fine, of you want to know why I sould stay dead, then I'll tell you." She shut her book with a slam. "I helped make the first magaspell, It was actually my healing spell that was it's core spell. I was on the team who thought it up, and we came to the conclusion that it would do nothing but good. And the worst part of it all, I was the one who convinced Fluttershy, my best friend, that we sould make it in the first place." She glared at me. "My actions I help destroy our world, and all the blame was passed to the one pony who wanted to save it." She opened her book again. "Now unless you outstanding speech to convince me that I can do better, don't try. I already tried my best, and look at were it got us."

I was a bit stunned. I realy didn't know much about Healing Herbs, and this was all a bit heavy. She was right, someone like me would have no chance to convince her to do anything she didn't want to do. "You win. But before we go, How do we get a signal?"

She looked over and glanced at the 2600 on my right leg. "Have you checked the radio function? If a portal is still open, then all you need is a radio signal to give it the direction it needs to jump through."

I sighed. "Nothing, I checked earlier, but theres nothing on the radio."

"Hmmm. We did open the a portal with a megaspell, so it sould still be lingering. Do you have a broadcaster?" I nodded. "Then theres your answer, with the brodcaster, you sould be able to force a connection, you just need to boost it with..."

"MORE MAGICAL POWER!" Fragment interrupted Healing Herbs as she shot up, standing on her two back legs. "We just need to use some magical power source to boost the broadcaster. Reach out and grab any signal it can find. Then we use the teleportation spell to get back to our world. It's quit simple when you think about it."

Healing Herbs closed her book again. "Before I didn't care, but Slowtrot, who is mare, and why dose she look like you."

Before I could answer, Fragment silenced me with a hoof in my mouth. "Names Fragment, well it's more of what I am, so I might change the name if I stop being a fragment. Simply, I'm made of some left over peaces of the souls and memory's that got left behind in the pipbuck 2600."

Healing Herbs lifted an eyebrow. "Charmed. But how do you know about boosting the broadcaster?"

Fragment grind. "Easy, I know it all from you. You're not actually Healing herbs, well you are, but just a a peace that got sherd off by the 2600. which means your like me." This actually explained why she was here, if she was like Fragment, then it would be logical that she was moving around like Fragment was.

Healing Herbs slammed her book down on her desk, the force was enough to put out her candle. "You know, never mind. I don't care to hear any more of this nonsense." Her voice was strained and quivered. "You sould just leave now, before I do more things I will regret."

"I'm sorry miss Herbs, but.."

The book flew at me, and I just ducked in time to avoid it. Fragment had scooted off to the side, avoiding Healing Herbs gaze. "Just get out, I already helped you, so go, let me die with some peace!"

"but go were, Phobetor is probably right outside the door!"

"That's not my problem, no get ou..." She hit the ground after taking a bigger book to the back of the head.

Fragment smirked, lifting Healing Herbs onto her back "Okay, now we can go."

My jaw felt like it almost unhinged itself. "Why did you do that!?"

"Cuss like I said, she's a fragment. And well, I can't just leave her here. It be like leaving a sister, or, well something like that to die."

"But why knock her out?"

She walked to the door, and flicked her tail at me. "She was being a stubborn nag." The door bulged with a violent bang. "And were taking the window!"

I was first out, finding the ledge was large enough for us to stand on. Fragment hoofed over Healing Herbs for me to carry, and joined us outside just in time as the room inside exploded. Not far from us was a fire escape. Somehow not surprisingly it only went up, as the part going down had become a bunch of twisted metal.

Phobetor followed us to the legged, the black fog somehow staying on it as it pursued us like we were pray.

"Hmm, why dose my head hurt?" Healing Herbs awoke as we we raced upstairs. I felt her hooves suddenly tighten around me "What is that!?" she lifted a hoof at pointed at what was Phobetor.

"Didn't I tell you that the nightmare was after us." Healing Herbs responded by using all four hooves to hold onto me more firmly. I pushed a harder up the stares, knowing that she wasn't going to just fall of me.

Once on the roof, I let Healing Herbs off of me, and we ran for the rooftop door. The damn thing was locked, so this time I was the one to ram the door. "One, Two, Three!" I hit the door with as much force as I could, but it did not budge. Taking a quick look, the black fog slowly pushed itself up onto the roof. "One, Two, Three!" this time I bucked the door, pushing as much force as I could muster to my back legs, and the door flew open with a bang.

Not wasting time, we all ran for it. For all her talk of excepting all this as her punishment, Healing Herbs was the first one through the door.

With the nightmare on our tails, we headed strait for the exit, practically sliding down the stairs, and flying through the halls. In the lobby, the remains of our barricade was everywhere, with the exit clear and open to us. We were getting out of here, except for one problem. Holding a flickering candle, a mare stood before us, with a black coat, main, and tail. Along with to angry gold eye's.

I slid to a stop. "Pobetor!?"

She glared at me, but its affect was not as effective as it could have bean. One of her eyes were swollen shut, and she was covered in scrapes and bruises. "Surrender Slowtrot, be my host and we can return to equestria." Her voice quivered as she talked. Before me was not the proud, and in control nightmare of an ancient era. What I saw was a mare desperately putting on an act, but too frail to fool anypony.

"What? No! Get out of our way, were running from you!"

She took a step back, looking confused at my response. "wha.. what!"

The building shook, the smell of dust and decay drifted in all around us. The floors cracked, the walls flaked, and a deep groaning could be heard from further in. The building was coming down.

"Fuck this." I didn't have time to make sense of what was going on, so I charged Phobetor. The other two following behind me closely. Phobetor actually flinched at my sudden closing in on her, dropping her candle, leaving the only light from my pipbuck. Lowering my head, I felt her belly slid over me, and with a push up she was on my back.

"When your told to go pick up a mare, I don't think that's what they meant Slowtrot." Fragment laughed as she galloped next to me.

"You said that fog was Photebor, but shes on your back right now, so what going on?." Healing Herbs shouted from my other side.

I had the same question, and knew one pony I could ask. "Fragment, you seem to know more then what your telling me, so what the fuck is going on?"

Fragment snickered. "Honestly, I don't know what that thing is. But Photebor, she's another fragment. Same as how I have a bit of you in me Slowtrot in me, the 2600 sheared off a bit of every pony here."

Wait, a peace of me! "What was that! A bit of me in you?"

Fragment pulled in ahead of the group. "You, Thorn, Healing, and Phobetor all had the 2600 on. That little bastard seems to realy like keeping souvenir of it's users."

I slid to a stop, something finally clicked, well not clicked, but a big question became clear to me. The others also stopped. Healing herbs looked worried and confused. Fragment had that cocky grin on her face she had from when I first woke up. Phobetor flank hit me in the back of the head, and she made a squeak like sound. "What the hell are you Fragment, what are you realy?"

She shrugged. "I only know as much as you... well I did, but I also now know a ton from miss Healing Herbs. Dieing with that pipbuck on imprinted a lot of you onto it. And the nightmare, in the end she was just some old mare that didn't understated anything about what she was using. So with Healings's death, some of Phobetor got imprinted into it too." She steped towards me, and tapped the 2600 on my right leg. "It's strange, I felt like I was almost gone, still there, but nearly gone. And then you put that back on. Suddenly everything was me again, but more me, a lot more me. So if I was to make an educated guess, I'm probably the 2600 itself."

"How is that possible?"

Fragment rotated her hoof. "Just think about it, it had fragments of memories and souls in it. How cold it not come to life, how could I not become something more. All I needed was an ego, and being forced out of the pipbuck, and into you did just that."

"Okay, so your the.. you were the 2600, now what?"

"Next, I absorb those two, and I leave this place."

I stood their confused and stunned. Fragment jumped forward, and hooked a hoof around the back of my neck. Phobetor suddenly felt much light on my back. Letting me go, she then jumped for Healing Herbs. looking over to see just in time, Healing Herbs crack and fall to peaces in Fragments embrace. Checking my back, Phobetor was gone as well.

I shook my head to regain my composer. "What's the point of this, you said it yourself, we would need more power to even reach out and get a signal? I don't see anything here that can help us do that!"

She laughed. "That's because your a simpleton, a fool, and not that bright." a horn formed from her head, and glowed gray. "I just need a battery with enough power to do what I need it to do." A spark of magic shot from her horn, and hit me in the chest. I felt all my strength drain from me, as I crumbled to the ground. "You will do as that battery, all you need to do is stay there, and let me do the rest.

The 2600 came to life with the sound of static. It went on until I heard a beep, which was followed by a few more beeps.

"Ahhh, there it is, a bit faint, but I can work with that." A gray glow enveloped Fragment's horn, and her pipbuck. "This is goodby Slowtrot, It was fun, but we have to go our separate ways now. Think of it this way, I'm leaving just the same way as I came into your life. Sudden and unexpected." With a pop, she was gone.

The black fog finally caught up with me, surrounding me, and doing nothing more. From my position, I could see that it didn't get any closer to were the pipbuck light touched.

I could not muster the strength to move, not for a good long time. All I had the strength to do was cry. The sound from the 2600 slowly widened down and it went dark. When I could finally move a little, the over sized pipbuck just slid off. The pipbuck was dead, and with it, my way home.

Getting up, the fog that surrounded me never closed in, and would move when I did. My only guess was that it was adverse to the light of my pipbuck lamp. So I slowly trotted off, in hopes to find something, anything.

__________________________

As far as I could tell, this was a dead world, or whatever it was, it was dead. I would curses the mass that surrounded me, but every time I would make a run for it, I would see nothing but darkness passed it. There was quite literally nothing here, other then me, this weird mass that surrounded me, and the light from my pipbuck.

The time I spent wandering, I lost count. I rationed the food and drink given to me, as my pipbuck organized when I sould eat and drink to maximize how long it would last. I saved the hard pear cider for when I finally ran out.

Strangely enough, after the forth or fifth time taking a nap. I had lost count actually. The black fog had left, leaving me with nothing but the bleak landscape.

I ran out of food and drink.

Opening the fist bottle of hard cider, I chugged the content. It was good, too damn good. The other bottle I sipped, holding onto the buzz the first bottle gave me. Flipping through the radio, I got nothing but nothing. No surprise.

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

I hated this, I hated it all. Hate was a strong word to me, and I hated like I never hated before. But there was nothing to hate. hating nothingness was pointless, but I hated it because it was the only thing left to hate.

I threw an empty bottle, and the sound of braking glass didn't even echo. nether did the second, or the soda bottles I smashed under hoof.

I give up.

What was the point.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

My mind finally gave way to the hunger and thirst. I was hearing the sound of music. it was a friendly sound of a guitar playing.

Touch me
Like I'm the only
Little pony on the farm
Gettin a ride tonight

The voice was that of a stallion, his voice was clear, and quite good. There was the subtle use of a drum I think, it was only being used for a tapping. A piano joined it to make a fun melody. Last, a bass guitar joined in.

Kiss me
Like you want me
And this world ain't only
Full of war and upside down

At this point It clicked, this was not in my head... It was my pipbuck! I didn't have much strength left in me. But I had enough to check the pipbuck.

I won't pretend to philosophize
There's too much work to do
It's hard enough to just survive
What everypony throws at you

I laughed, it hurt, but I laughed anyway. I had one half of the thing I needed to get home, and the other I left far behind me, dead in a dead world. But shit, at least I got some music to die with now.

So love me
Endearingly
Lead me over, lets see
C'mon sweetie lets do it now

Hold me
Like you miss me
Get to know me, don't throw me
Baby I can be all yours

I messed with the pipbuck, turning up the volume.

Who needs a life, short or long
Tied to a lonely post?
I only want whats best for us
And us is what we both need most

Trust me
I think that you'll agree
There ain't no other love like me
And you, baby through and through

I felt it was a funny that the last song I would hear was a love song, kind of felt like life was mocking me a bit.

Heal me
So passionately
Break me in maybe
Cuz love's a remedy

Turning off the radio, I took out Chekhov's Promises and looked down the barrel. It shook in my hooves grip. "It's a good thing I know one way to shoot. Ironbuck, enter S.T.A.T.'s" There was a free aiming mode for firing a gun, so I just turned it onto myself and selected entered. I had a %99 to hit, good odds.

*Bang*

"FUCKING FUCK SHIT FUCK!" It missed, it fucking missed and shot myself in the leg! Picking up the gun, I shoved it back into my bag. I seriously just gave up.

"Ironbuck, what's the damn point."

"I do not understand the question."

I plopped down, letting myself bleed out. "Ironbuck, when I die, will you suddenly become your own pony and go off on your own."

"Sir is suffering blood loss. Suggest sir seek medical attention."

"Ironbuck, there is nothing medical around, I'm going to die, and that is it."

"Activating emergency protocol. Sending sir to closest settlement. Signal found, activating one time use teleportation spell."

"Whit wha...."

__________________________

"Hello Wasteland, that was the Wasteland Wailers with their song, Touch Me. This is DJ Pon3, and now I bring you that light in the dark, the news. Now I now you all are exited over the upcoming Light Bringer festival, but seriously ponies, don't drink and chariot race. There was a

nasty crash between four morons, but the good news is that no pony died, but they will have to miss out on the festival."

"In other news, Raiders have been sighted outside of old Appleloosa. I know, I know, didn't the N.C.R. get rid of all the raiders? Well they did, but this is some new group, they attack at night, and hide in the day. Troops have been sent out to deal with them, but any pony out around old appleloosa best bunker down at night, just to be safe."

"On the topic of Appleloosa, a pony fell from the sky right into New Appleloosa last night, right out of nowhere. Yes, I know a lot of you don't care if another pegasus falls out of the sky and hurt themselves, which is racist, but the odd thing is, it was not a pegasus. It was a stable dwelling earthpony if ya would believe it. Clear skies as far as any pony could see, and wouldn't you know it, crashed right onto a building run by Followers of the Apocalypse. Some luck, luck for a pony falling from the sky itself. Now I'd go and get a comment from said pony, but the good doctors say that the pony in question is currently in a coma, and will not be waking up any time soon."

And that's it for the news. And remember my little ponies, just because the water isn't dirty, dose not mean it's clean. Boil all water before use, or risk getting real sick. Now for some music...

__________________________

Fallout Equestria: Stable-Tec R&D

End

Do you wish to start a new game, Y/N?

Author's Notes:

Well if you got this far, thank you for reading Stable-Tec R&D, and I'm more surprised then anyone here that I actually finished it, much less started it,

For the song Wasteland Wailers - Touch Me Thanks for the interesting, and original music, leep up the good work.

Once more I send a big thanks to Kkat for the original Fallout: Equestria this would have never existed without you.

And to anyone who want's more, keep an eye out for my next story Fallout Equestria: Chumming Waters. So until next time, fight the good fight.