> FoE: War Never Changes: Brother From Another Mother
>  by jarmari
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria...

…there came an era when the ideals of friendship gave way to greed, selfishness, paranoia and a jealous reaping of dwindling space and natural resources. Lands took up arms against their neighbors. The end of the world occurred much as we had predicted -- the world was plunged into an abyss of balefire and dark magic. The details are trivial and pointless. The reasons, as always, purely our own. The world was nearly wiped clean of life. A great cleansing; a magical spark struck by pony hooves quickly raged out of control. Megaspells rained from the skies. Entire lands were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. Pony-kind was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the ambient radiation that blanketed the lands. A quiet darkness fell across the world...

(This story is a continuation of Fallout Equestria: War Never Changes, please read that first as this story only gives a brief summary of the last story and it is spoiler heavy but lacking most of the context, so if you don 't want to be left confused go read War Never Changes first :P)



The Road So Far


Carry on my wayward Pon. There'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more...


My name is Sugarcane, I'm a unicorn buck, a beautiful shade of blue if I do say so myself, and sexier than I know what to do with. I'm also a scientist. I specialize in computer programming and robotics and I have a degree in theoretical computational nanoscience and at one time I, along with my brother, was tagged to be the greatest computer expert in all of Equestria. We, my brother and I, started a computer company, designed the Star-Cane computer operating system, sold computers to the whole of Equestria. Odds are if you're reading this on a computer, it's a computer I designed, on software my brother and I wrote together. I woke one day to find myself in a cryogenic suspension pod, something my company had been helping develop for the Ministry of Peace. 200 years had passed and, worse, my world was now in utter ruins. My office and warehouse destroyed, my family and friends dead, and the whole world having all but wiped itself out in a balefire Armageddon. Worse still, I woke to find a shotgun in my face, held by a very angry looking orange unicorn. That was my introduction to the wasteland. Not so much eased into it as hurled blind into the fray. It wasn't as bad as all that though. Turned out the unicorn was just erring on the side of caution in his approaching me, also because he thought I was cute...but that's another story. 

I met my closest friends that day though. Ruby Star, a beautiful beyond words, smart as a whip pegasus who I love more than life itself, and who is in NO WAY standing RIGHT behind me while I write this, that I was lucky enough to have fall in love with me as hard as I fell for her, and who is now my lovely bride. I met Brute Force, the unicorn with the shotgun, who now probably qualifies as my best male friend, his grandmother, great great great grandmother, Crackshot, a ghoul who has survived since the apocalypse, Concussive Blast, my now adopted daughter, and my actual great great grand daughter, and future wielder of the Element of Magic, Xem, a zebra colt we took in along the way, Lily, a Changeling and Ruby's adopted cousin, who fights slavers and raiders as the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, and finally Firebird, Lily's mother and Ruby's aunt, she fled the Enclave with Ruby's parents before they could be branded Dashites, a crime that Ruby would later be punished for, but we'll come back to that.

It took a long time to adjust to the wasteland. The violence, the danger, the whole world, everything was so dark, so miserable and angry to me. Days turned into weeks turned into months as I adjusted to my new life, only to have my life thrown into chaos again a few short months later as a group called the Pyro Pony Collective marched on, and torched, the base our organization, simply called 'The Collective', operated out of, killing dozens of ponies, including Concussive Blast's mother, and destroying tens of thousands of caps worth of equipment and supplies. Shortly after this I came to learn that my brother Star Venture was their leader. He had always been something of a hard ass, easy to anger and with a hell of an ego some times. I was the only pony that could keep him in line, whether it was rescuing some poor staffer at our offices who had accidentally crossed him, or putting him in his place if he started to get too out of control about our companies exploits, over-hyping things far too often. He was the one who had me put into the cryo pod and left me frozen, 'just in case' he needed me for his master plan. At some point in time he had moved his mind into a protectapony body he had custom built, only his brain and his horn remaining from his body.

He had decided that he was tired of trying to consolidate his power in the wasteland so he moved on to a far more extreme idea. With the help of a Crusader Computer he built and using CB as the processor, he created a megaspell that allowed him to cross dimensions in the hopes of finding a normal Equestria that he and his Pyro's could invade and seize control of with little effort. We stopped him, barely, pulling CB from the control pod and causing the megaspell to destabilize, which sucked him into some random dimension, alone. Here we catch up to the story, and where my tale continues...


FoE: War Never Changes: Brother From Another Mother

“Guys, you need to see this.” Crackshot called, standing on the edge of the crater where the portal had been only moments earlier. We walked over and looked down into the pit. In the middle lay the strangest creature I'd ever seen, pale white, mostly hairless skin, a short yellow mane that stopped well before what I was pretty sure was it's neck. It's four legs ended in strange appendages and it wore some kind of armour that had clearly been tailored for it's odd form, it appeared to be unconscious and was bleeding from it's mouth and nose. For a moment I thought maybe passing through the portal had mutated Venture but Ruby gasped softly and started down into the hole quickly.

“Wait Ruby, we don't know if it's safe!” Brutus snapped. “We don't even know what it is!”

“I do...” Ruby said, landing beside it and rolling the strange creature onto it's back. “It's a human...”

“A WHAT?!” We all asked in unison.

“A human...” She said again. “Brutus pull him out of the hole.” She flew back up and landed beside it. Brutus wrapped the creature...human...in his magic and lifted it up. It groaned loudly in pain as Brutus set it back down.

“Hey it has a saddlebag.” CB said, floating a bag out of the pit. The bag had a number of guns looped through it and opening it revealed dozens of clips of ammo and random pieces of equipment and junk.

“Hey Cane, this thing has a pipbuck...” Crackshot said, pointing to it's foreleg.

“Wait wait wait!” Ruby yelled, flapping her wings around at us to keep us back. “This is a living creature, give her some breathing room.”

“Her?” Crackshot asked.

“Or...maybe him? I don't know how to tell.” Ruby sighed, looking more frustrated than I'd have expected. Of course if I had a computer problem I couldn't solve I'd get frustrated, so when it comes to something that is her area of expertise I wasn't surprised.

“Well what do we do with it?” Brutus asked. “If the others outside come barging in this could cause a panic.”

“There's a medical wing upstairs, maybe we could take it and stash it up there?” Crackshot suggested, gesturing to the doorway at the top of the ladder that she had come from earlier.

“Yeah alright.” Brutus nodded. “Show me the way.” He floated the body into the air and followed Crackshot up the ladder and out of sight.

CB, Ruby and I headed back out of the main room to make our way back to the entrance. The town outside was quiet now. The fighting looked to be all over. Collective ponies were rounding up pyros, tending to the wounded and explaining the situation to those that had been freed. It seemed that when we crashed Venture's Crusader computer it had shorted out the power grid and the cloaking field around the warehouse had come down.

Lily came running over to us from a group I recognized from her town. Her helmet was closed and she was running in Mare-Do-Well mode. “The town is secure. We're sweeping the city to ensure all resistance has been removed and we'll make sure the town is fit for being resettled. What happened with Venture?”

“He's not a threat anymore.” I said. “He's...gone.” Despite myself I still felt a twinge of sadness, my only living direct family member was dead, or at least lost to me forever.

“What happened?” Lily asked quietly, leaning in to whisper to us.

“Venture built a Crusader computer...it was going to power an inter-dimensional portal that he was going to use to invade an alternate Equestria that hadn't been destroyed by a war.” Ruby said. “He tried to use CB as the processor but Cane pulled her from the control pod. The portal destabilized and sucked Venture up. We don't know what happened to him but it spit out a human...”

“What's that?”

“It's a creature from ancient mythology. Like a hairless monkey thing...it's hard to explain.” Ruby sighed. “Brutus and Crackshot are stashing it away in the medical bay on the uppermost floor of the building until we can figure out what to do with it.”

“Is it alive?”

“Last I saw yeah.”

“I gotta see this thing.” Lily started towards the building. “Coming pipsqueak?” She asked, looking back at CB. “You wanna check this thing out too right?”

“Yeah I do.” CB nodded happily then paused and looked back at me. “Can I go Daddy?”

“Of course.” I nodded, smiling, feeling an odd flutter in my chest when she said it. I could almost see Lily giggling and going 'awwwwww' inside her helmet. The two of them headed inside and Ruby laughed softly.

“That's sweet.” She said. “I could almost see your eyes sparkle with excitement when she called you that.”

“You're not going to ask her to call you mom are you?” I asked seriously.

“What? Of course not! She has a mother. She never had a father.” Ruby said, almost horrified that I'd asked in the first place it seemed.

A group of soldiers moved towards the entrance of the base and in an odd moment of panic I bolted to the entrance and blocked them. “You can't go in.”

“What? Why not?” One of them asked.

“This area is off limits until I can process everything inside.”

“Are you kidding? Who knows what tech is in there.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Get out of the way you hornless dolt .” He said, moving to push past me, but a stream of blasts from Ruby's Gatling laser halted them as she stepped up to stand beside me.

“This is my building.” I said firmly. “Little as the law might mean any more, this is my building. It's contents are mine, it's walls, it's power grid, everything belongs to me. The computers, storage servers, everything needs to be catalogued so I can study it and put together everything Venture was doing, I'm not going to have any strangers wandering through my base taking my things to sell and potentially robbing me of valuable data.”

“How do you plan on stopping us?” He asked. A hoof tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned to look the white power armoured hoof decked him and sent him tumbling to the ground.

“I believe that task falls to me.” Firebird said, stepping in front of the doors. Her armour was scorched and pockmarked but it had fared the battle amazingly well, I should think about getting power armour. She stepped in front of the group and blocked the door. “This is the only way in?” She asked, looking over at me.

“Yeah, kept these secret facilities more secure with only one entrance. Not very safe in the event of a fire or something but it worked.” I said.

“Alright, on ya go then.” Firebird nodded. “Send CB and Xem up here to relay messages back to you guys if needed alright? I could use the company too.”

“Yes ma'am.” I saluted and Ruby and I started into the building again.

//////////

“So?” I asked, looking up at Brutus as we came up to the medical bay. He was sitting with the pack the human had been wearing when it appeared and he was going through the contents. The human lay on a bed behind him, still unconscious.

“So what?” Ruby replied, walking into the room and walking around the bed slowly, marvelling at the creature before her.

“We think it's a guy.” Lily said, holding up a magazine that showed a group of humans, modelling clothes for sale. “It's a...men?” Lily asked, pointing to the 'mens' at the top of the page. “Because the women looks softer and has long hair, and these weird lumps on them.”

“It's actually MAN and WOMAN.” Ruby said. “MEN and WOMEN are plural.” She came over and looked at the magazine curiously, nodding a little, as if to confirm her own explanation.

“So what do we do with it?”

“I don't know.” Ruby said, looking back at the bed. “We just have to wait until it...he...wakes up and see what we can do with him.”

“Uhh I don't know about you guys but if I woke up in another reality where I was the only member of my race and that my home was possibly gone forever, I'd freak the fuck out...much like I DID freak the fuck out when I woke up 200 years in the future.” I said.

“I think I can help with that...” Lily muttered, flipping through another magazine and studying it intently. “Yeah I think I can...” She pressed some buttons on her pipbuck and the armour hissed open, freeing her and allowing her to step out. She stretched her wings and sighed. She looked at the magazine on the floor and closed her eyes, glowing brightly for a moment and when it cleared she stood in a fully human female form. Looking at the magazine you could tell she was kind of a combination of all the women on the page.

She stood about 5'10, with waist length brown hair and blue eyes.

“I think you're supposed to be clothed.” Crackshot said, looking up from the table she'd sat down at.

“Really? That seems so constrictive.” Lily sighed, holding her hands out and looking at them in amazement. “Does he have any clothes in his bags?”

“Uhh not that I've seen.” Brutus said. “Some armour, but no pants or anything.”

“Well maybe give me the armour and we can find some other clothes around here to make pants?”

“Gimme five minutes.” Ruby said, hurrying out of the room again. When she returned she had a number of dresses and sets of barding. Lily started grabbing up the dresses and going through them. She finally took three of the dresses that were all a simple black and, using her magic, which looked odd with her hands glowing instead of her horn, pulled the dresses apart and put them back together into a simple black dress that she could wear properly over her form. While it looked clearly stitched together, this human was from a wasteland too so we doubted he'd question it.

“Uhh I need this...” I said from the side of the bed, holding up the human's arm and gesturing to computer. “His pipbuck could contain a lot of useful data to help us figure things out.”

“You just wanna play with it.” Brutus laughed.

“Come on, help a brother out.” I whined. “I don't have my magic to use the tools to remove it myself.”

“Alright fine, but don't wander off and don't break it.” Brutus said seriously, taking the tools in his magical grip when I selected them from my saddlebags and brought them out with the inventory management spell. He removed the metal device and floated it over to the table, returning the tools to me. I just nodded and sat at the table with my new toy.

It had shorted out...probably all the power of the teleportation mega-spell. I ran a cable out of my pipbuck and into his...pipboy...huh what an odd name. It booted up after a moment and came back to life, scrolling through a load process before springing up with a picture of a cartoon looking human. “No user detected.” It said on that screen, but it still let me scroll through the other screens. The inventory was empty, made sense since his stuff was all over the floor right now. Screens for notes, a radio tuner card,  programming controls like mine, really really similar across the board. “This thing is amazing. It's almost exactly like mine, but it's got human pictures instead.”

“Okay good, now just don't break it.” Brutus said again.

“Yeah yeah, don't worry about it.” I said, waving a hoof at him and continuing to poke at the device.

“Don't you wave me off.” Brutus growled, stepping over to the table.

“Or what?” I retorted, but our argument was cut short when the human in the bed groaned loudly and started to stir. 

“Oh shit I think he's waking up, everypony out!” Lily snapped, straightening up the dress as best she could and moving to sit beside the bed.

We all scrambled out of the room quickly, Brutus grabbed the pipboy and put it back into place quickly on the human's arm before following behind us, closing the door and moving to observe through the two way mirror that sat along one side.

“Ow...the fuck happened?” He whispered, brown eyes slowly trying to focus on the roof.

“Careful, you had a nasty fall.” Lily said, standing up and leaning over him slowly.

“Aww shit I died didn't I?” He asked, studying her intently before closing his eyes again. “No way anyone as cute as you exists in the wasteland...no...no I can't be dead I hurt too much.”

She blushed faintly but shook her head. “I'm just as real as you are. My name's Lilith, and you're in my hospital, you can call me Lily.”

“Pollux.” He replied, looking back at her again. “But you can call me Paul...Thank you for not just leaving me for dead and taking my stuff. What happened?”

“Bandits.” She lied. “You were jumped by some bandits, fell back, tumbled off a cliff. A passing caravan saw the whole thing, brought you here since I was so close by.”

“Again lucky me...” He sighed. I recognized his voice some how, but  it was too weak and strained for me to be sure. “When can I get out of here? I'm tracking someone and I don't want him to get away.”

“Well...” Lily sighed, unable to come up with any good reason to be able to keep lying to him. “That might be a problem...”

“Why?” He asked, sitting up slowly in the bed.

“There were no bandits...” Lily said slowly. “You were caught in the collapsing passage of a  multidimensional teleportation device and you were actually ripped out of your world and deposited into ours.”

“What?” He asked flatly, clearly not believing her for a second.

“I didn't want you to freak out. I was hoping to acclimatize you to the situation before laying the truth out there.”

“Look I have seen a lot of shit in the last year...” He said. “I woke up in a cryogenic stasis chamber of my own design, only to find that 200 years had passed and my family and friends were all dead...I was scared, alone, miserable, and THEN I found out the whole fucking world had all but wiped itself out in nuclear Armageddon. I struggled, alone and confused, to find my way in the wasteland, only to find that my own brother was responsible for my cryo-imprisonment, and is still alive today, though I'll be damned if I know how, and I need to find him and put my fist through his teeth. I'm willing to come to terms with a lot of shit, but inter-dimensional teleportation is so far outside of the realm of believable that I'm still shocked I entertained your idea long enough for this rant to get me this upset...What?” Lily was looking at the mirrored side of the observation window, the ponies that sat around me were all looking at me in surprise, no wonder his voice sounded so familiar...

“Y...You're Doctor Cane?” Lily finally asked slowly, looking back at the man in the bed.

“Yes...you've heard of me?”

“Kind of. Look...I'm being honest here. You were pulled in by accident when we closed the portal on our side. Humans are...well they don't exist in this world. They're the stuff of legend...Ancient mythology, not real.”

“Really? What are you then?” He asked sarcastically.

“I'm called a 'Changeling' I have the ability to shape shift into any form. I took human form so you wouldn't freak out.”

“Fucksake...So I get rescued by a crazy person...perfect...” He grumbles. “Humans are just ancient myths? So who lives here? The ancient Greek gods? Maybe the Norse ones? Gorgons and frost giants and Stygian birds?” He snapped, getting angry.

“What? N...No...” Lily stammered, take aback by his anger.

“Oh I know maybe Wizards and swamp creatures?” He demanded, Lily getting more and more flustered.

“No...”

“NO!? Oh then it must be gryphons and hydras and unicorns with rainbows shooting out of their asses!”

Lily was almost in tears by now. “AHEM!” Brutus cleared his throat, he and I standing in the doorway of the room now. The man in the bed screamed and with amazing speed pulled two pistols from inside his armour, but just as fast Brutus had a shotgun levelled in his face, wrapped in his magic field. This was looking amazingly familiar. “Dammit, why didn't I think to check INSIDE the armour...” Brutus muttered to himself, obviously annoyed.

“W...what are you?” Paul stammered, dropping the pistols at the sight of the shotgun in his face. 

I looked at them in amazement. Ebony and Ivory lay on the bed, but with weird little triggers on the underside of the barrels, clearly designed to be held by a human hand.

“We're unicorns. Sorry we don't have rainbows shooting out our asses.” Brutus growled, all too ready to end this, but I put a hoof on his shoulder.

“Put the gun down.” I said softly, stepping forward. I flipped open one of my holsters and pulled my Ebony out, setting it next to the other one that lay on the bed. The guns were identical except for the triggers. I did the same with Ivory, this time there was also the crack on mine from when I'd lost it in the first pyro raid. The human was studying the guns in amazement. Brutus meanwhile was trying to comfort Lily, who had started crying when the guns had started popping up. It wasn't like her to get quite so emotional over something so simple but Brutus just walked out of the room with her.

“My name's Sugar Cane.” I said and the human looked at me intently. “My fiancee was a custom weapons designer, she made these for me...I'm guessing it's the same for you?” He nodded slowly, though the shock in his eyes was still obvious.

“Well hopefully this will make explaining easier.” I said, sitting down beside the bed. “I'm you...you're me...I'm sure you've figured that out?” He simply nodded again. “Everything that happened to you seems to have happened to me. Working on Cryogenic suspension, frozen by my brother, woke up 200 years in the future to find a wasteland. Here's where the stories differ though. I was thawed out by the unicorn with the shotgun and I've been working with him and his organization ever since. I'm guessing that didn't happen to you because you made no mention of it?”

“N...no. I was woken up because there was a power failure in the grid and it thawed me out with the backups before they died.”

“So you're alone? You don't have friends worrying about you back on the other side?”

“What's it to you?” He asked seriously, looking worried again.

“I'm not going to hurt you. Do you think we'd have moved you to a private medical facility and helped you recover if we were just going to rob and murder you?”

“No. I don't have any friends waiting for me back home, just my vendetta against my brother.”

“Again our paths line up there. My brother froze me too, thinking he might one day need me to power the machine that brought you here. In the end he didn't need me and my being thawed was an accident. Right now I want nothing more than to help you get home.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“If I'm right, my brother is in YOUR dimension, probably preparing to wreck havoc, maybe even looking for YOUR brother...if he figures out what's happened and where he is.”

“Why should I trust you? This might all be some weird Enclave experiment...or I'm in a coma or something.”

“Well if you're in a coma you don't have anything to lose. If this is an Enclave experiment feel free to ask me ANYTHING and I'll answer it. I assume most of our lives are fairly parallel.”

He sighed and picked up my Ebony and Ivory, looking at them curiously. “What did you do to Ivory?” He asked, gesturing to the crack along the barrel.

“Our base was attacked and I lost her for a while. When I went back and found her she was cracked and I don't have the skills to repair it, so we bonded it with epoxy to make sure it didn't break under strain and left it at that, though I tend to favour Ebony still.”

“How do you fire them?” He asked, looking the gun over curiously. I recognized his actions almost immediately. He was freaking out and trying to lose himself in scientific study because he could focus on that and let the rest of his brain work out the insanity while he ignored it. It's how I acclimatized to the wasteland, losing myself in my mind, thinking about things too hard...I still remembered that first day with the collective when I had to meet with them to prove I was an asset and Crackshot and Brutus kept making fun of me for getting lost in my mind.

“Uhh you have to have magic.” I said. “The triggers are hidden in the hilts so they are useless to anypony who can't use magic and even useless to the ones who can, but don't know where the trigger is inside the gun.”

“Oh...” He set them down and looked at me intently again. “So I assume the other two are out there watching us through the window?” He pointed to the mirror and I nodded. “Your angry orange friend is a unicorn? Really? With magic and all that? So what are you?”

“Uhh...” I blushed and looked at the ground sadly. “I guess I'm an Earth Pony now...”

“Now?”

“I AM a unicorn.” I gestured to the flat bump on my forehead. “Until about two hours ago this was my horn...now it's just a useless bump, my horn is downstairs embedded in the neck of a dead Alicorn...”

“A what now?”

“An Alicorn...they're a mixture of unicorn and pegasus. Magic AND wings to fly.”

“There's pegasi here too?” He laughed. “I have to be dreaming...or hooked up to some machine...”

“You started a computer company with your brother right out of high school. You wrote and designed the OS for the computers now found all over the wasteland, a computer your brother designed. As time went on and the war started to worsen your company branched out into the war effort like a lot of other companies. Weapons R&D, the Cryo project, robotic soldiers, nanotechnology, which you got a Ph. D in just so people would have to call you 'Doctor', at the first Hearth's Warming party after the weapon designers set up shop you were sitting on that ugly green couch in the back of the room, playing with a data pad, pretending to work, but which you'd put old games onto so you could play around and no one would notice, a young mare...woman...?” He nodded. “A young woman came over and started talking to you about the party. She was really pretty, a lot like those girls in high school that were only nice to you when they needed help with a science project or their computers were acting up, except she didn't want anything from you but to chat. You talked about how she was settling in to the new facility, you apologized about the lack of proper testing space for guns...Before you knew it three hours had passed and your data pad sat forgotten on the table beside the couch while you were lost in conversation about your life and hers.”

“That's how I met Rosalea.” He nodded slowly. “Except it was a Christmas party...not whatever you said.”

“Christmas? Well I suppose it might be similar.” I shrugged. “Takes place in the winter, gives everypony a chance to come together with family and friends?”

“Basically.” He replied.

“So they're about the same then.”

“That's...insane...” Paul sighed. “I just...are you kidding me? Really? A world of ponies? That has to be the craziest thing I've ever heard.”

“Says the human being that isn't supposed to exist.” I smirked.

“Yeah I suppose so...alright...tell me more...” He said finally.

So I launched into an explanation of Equestrian history and the war with the zebras, which lead to more questions, but at the same time he taught me all about the 'America' he came from and the war with 'China' over dwindling resources, again all very similar to our own history. We ended up going off topic constantly as we compared technologies of the two worlds, Pipbuck vs Pipboy, which shared an amazing amount of comparability, our healing potions versus their 'stim-paks', our computer operating systems, our lives, soon we had dozens of items written in a notebook from his pack showing all the similarities.

There was a knock at the door and without looking up from the two magazines we were comparing we answered 'come in!' in the same silly feminine voice, making us both burst out laughing.

“Okay that's just spooky.” Ruby said, coming into the room. “I'm not sure I can deal with TWO Canes...”

Paul studied her curiously. “You're actually a pegasus?” He asked, pushing himself up out of the bed and moving to study her. Our bodies reached just above his waist, the top of our heads were about level with the top of his chest. “That's amazing...” He walked around her slowly, studying her curiously. “C...Can I touch your wing?” He asked hesitantly.

“Really?” She sighed, but held a wing up and he ran his hand along it, laughing like a child. “They're so soft.”

“They're feathers, they're supposed to be soft.” She snorted.

“And you can really fly?”

She tugged her wing free of him and lifted herself up into the air, circling the ceiling slowly, which just made Paul laugh all the harder. “That's AMAZING.”

Ruby landed again and looked at me. “It's getting late, there are ponies who desperately want to get back inside so they can get their things from the living quarters. Firebird is standing guard at the Armoury and Brutus found a way to lock the doors on all the server rooms through one of the computer systems.”

“What? How late is it?” I looked at the clock on the wall and realized that almost nine hours had passed. “Oh wow we really got lost in conversation didn't we, yeah sorry go ahead and let em in, as long as no one can loot the computer rooms we're fine.”

“Yeah we didn't want to interrupt you two, you were both so intent on your work we weren't sure we could get through to you anyway, and since we didn't need you for the security meetings or the debriefing we just left you two be.”

“Who knows about Paul?” I asked.

“Our team and the council.” She replied. “They want to meet him but they said they're willing to wait until he can adjust to the culture shock.”

“That might take a few days still.” Paul said, still marvelling at Ruby.

“If you don't stop staring at my flank you're gonna lose the use of one of your legs.” She said coldly. There it was again, another member of the group acting in an emotionally uncharacteristic way...I'd have thought Ruby would have a field day to have unlimited access to a real human.

“Are you alright?” I asked softly.

“I'm fine...” She said, giving me a look I knew better than to question.

“Okay then...” I nodded simply. She looked over Paul again for a moment then turned and kissed me before leaving the room again.

“Uhh, did I do something wrong?”

“I'm not sure.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes and looking up at him again. “But I'm not well versed in the subtleties of personalities and emotions.”

“You and me both.” He nodded.

“Look why don't we go for a walk? I'll show you the Crusader Computer I was telling you about.”

“Yeah okay.” He said, grabbing up the paperwork we'd put together on the bed and following me out of the room. I took him down to the control room and he marvelled at the computers. I saw that the body of the Alicorn had been removed, though blood still soaked the wall and ground where it had been.

“These are amazing! I've never seen tech like this. It's beyond anything I've come across.”

“Well if the rest of the world is any indication, your brother has a similar set up that he's spent 200 years putting together.”

“And you're sure you can get me home with this?”

“Could you get me home with this?”

“Probably.”

“Well then?” I smirked, moving to the keyboard on the master terminal and booting it up. We'd have a lot of work to go through the computers and get him home.

He walked up behind me and looked curiously as I waited for the computer to start. “How do you use that?” He asked, pointing to the keyboard.

“What do you mean? You don't have keyboards in your world?”

“Well we do...but they have more than two buttons.” He said, reaching out and pressing the two buttons of the keyboard.

“Really? I suppose that makes sense, but on a computer like this...” I shrugged. The computer beeped and came up to a log in page.

“So how do you hack around this?”

I pulled up a blank screen and started typing. “How do you input binary?” I asked as the 0s and 1s flew across the screen.

“Uhh we have proper keyboards with a full set of buttons for each letter of the alphabet, buttons for each number, as well as a number of symbols, we program using words and command prompts instead of going through all the hassle of direct binary input.”

“Oh, well once I log in...” The computer chirped and opened into the familiar sight of the Star-Cane OS. “I can input like this.” I pulled up a blank document and used one key to scroll through all the letters, then numbers, then symbols, and used the other to input it.

“That must take forever!” He said, watching in amazement as I worked.

“Well it's kinda slow but you adapt over time.” I shrugged.

“I...Can you get me a bunch of keyboards? If you want me to help I need to make a keyboard I can work with.”

“Uhh sure.” I turned and looked up to the exit, spying a certain green filly and zebra spying on us.

“CB!” I called and the two jumped out of sight quickly. Paul looked up at the door curiously as the two slowly came back into view.

“Oh, hi Daddy, Xem and I were just walking past, was there something we could help you with?”

“Yeah can you two go to one of the computer supply rooms and round up all the keyboards you can manage? Brutus can show you where one of the rooms is.”

“Yeah of course.” Xem nodded, grabbing CB and pulling her along before CB could argue.

“Daddy?” Paul asked, looking at me again curiously. “I thought you'd only been here a year? Assuming you don't have some rapid ageing thing going on?”

“She's adopted.” I said, turning back to the computer in front of me. “Her mom was killed in the attack on our base, I felt responsible and took her in.”

“Oh...well that's good of you.” He nodded, standing quietly and watching me work in silence until the children returned with the pile of about 50 keyboards. 

“This was all that were in the one storage room, is that enough?” CB asked, floating them down to us and setting them on the floor.

“Should be more than enough.” Paul nodded, smiling to CB. 

“A...Are you really a human?” Xem asked, studying him intently.

“I am.” Paul said. “Are you really a zebra?”

“Of course I am!”

“Well then?” He laughed, taking the keyboards and starting to pile them up on a table.

“Oh, we also brought tools just in case.” CB said, pulling a pack from Xem's back and floating it down to us too.

“Oh perfect.” Paul nodded, taking the tools and setting them at his feet. He started taking apart the keyboards, piling up the inner workings of each and tossing the empty frames into a corner.

“Anything else we can do to help?” CB asked eagerly.

“I'm good.” Paul said, continuing with his work.

“If you could find Crackshot or Brutus...or if Firebird is done standing guard over the armoury could you ask whomever you come across first to come see me if they're not busy?” I asked.

“Sure thing.” CB nodded, looking disappointed but Xem again hurried her away from the door, closing it behind him.

“I think he's going to be a very good influence on her.” I smiled. “He's smart, polite and well behaved, hopefully it'll rub off on her.”

“You can hope.” Paul nodded, looking from the door to me and then back to his work.

“What are you doing?”

“I refuse to try and work on a computer that doesn't have a proper keyboard, so I'm making my own. It's going to be enough of a pain in the ass to have to program the ability to use the keyboard without a proper keyboard but at least I'll only have to do it the once. I'll carry the keyboard program in my Pip-Boy so I can input it into any computer I come across.”

“So you're going to start carrying a keyboard everywhere you go?”

“Until I can figure a better way? Yes.” He nodded.

“Boy you two are really griffons of a feather.” Crackshot said, jumping down the ladder and landing hard on the floor.

“Oh wow, a ghoul pony. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that.” Paul said.

“Nope, not at all.” Crackshot nodded. “Name's Crackshot.”

“Paul.” He replied simply, returning to his growing pile of components.

“Xem said you needed me?”

“Yeah, excuse us a moment.” I said to Paul and he nodded and resumed his disassembly of the keyboards.

I stepped to the side of the platform with Crackshot before I turned back to her. “Do you know what's wrong with Ruby and Lily?” I asked softly.

“Wrong?” She paused. “Oh, you mean Lily crying? She just entered a feeding cycle. It leaves her really emotionally vulnerable. She needs lots of love and kindness at these times to recharge her batteries, because of it she is a lot more receptive to emotions and it affects on a much deeper level, and I think Ruby was just angry that you guys upset Lily.”

“Wait, Changelings feed on emotions?” Paul asked, looking at us. “That has to be the craziest thing I've ever heard...”

“Do you mind? The ponies are talking.” I replied flatly.

He opened his mouth to respond, blinked for a moment as his face went blank then turned back to his work finally.

“So is she going to be okay?”

“She should be fine in a few days.” Crackshot nodded. “Between Firebird, Ruby, and all her friends in town she's always gotten all the energy she needs to keep her magic in check.”

“In check? I'm not going to lie, I don't know much about Changelings.”

“If she doesn't get a proper infusion of energy from love and kindness and happiness it weakens her terribly, makes her powers unstable, her body slows down, if the energy is little enough she might even die.”

“And in this desolate wasteland those aren't easy to come by.”

“Exactly.”

“So when things got tense she got upset because she was so open to the emotions in the room and it must have been like poison to her in her present state, which is why Ruby was so mad afterwards...I should go apologize.”

“Brutus took her to one of the vacant living quarters earlier, I think he went back to check on her a while ago but I haven't seen him.”

“That's okay, wonders of a pipbuck, I can find anyone, and she has a special marker, making it easier.” I grinned. “Hey Paul, are you going to be okay for a while?”

“What? Yeah I should be fine. I won't mess with any of the computers themselves, just gonna work on the keyboard.” He nodded.

“Alright, I'll be back soon.” I said, heading up the ladder and out into the hallway, making my way to the living area.

I had to make my way through three of the living sections before I finally found her marker, and it looked like Brutus was still with her. I found the room and knocked quietly.

“Hey guys?” I called when no one opened the door after a minute, but again no answer. I opened the door slowly, a green light shining out of the room as I did. “Lily? Brutus? ARGH!” I screamed and fell back into the hallway, Ruby rounding the corner quickly at the far end of the hall.

“Sugar what happened?” She asked, flying down the hallway quickly and landing beside me.

“I...I...It's...” I shuddered and turned from the doorway, dry heaving and trying to keep from throwing up.

“It's what?” Ruby pushed past me and looked into the room. Brutus lay stretched out on the bed, a blanket half pulled over him, sound asleep, Lily lay beside him, nuzzled under his head, her horn gone, though her body still glowed with the green magical energy that lit the room, she wasn't lying under the blanket, and her body was distinctly...masculine.

“WHAT THE BUCK IS THIS SHIT?!” Ruby screamed, storming into the room, the two slumbering lovers jolted awake by Ruby's shrill voice. “BRUTE FORCE! YOUR BALLS ARE VISIBLE TO THE WHOLE WORLD! AND LILLITH, YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE BALLS TO BE VISIBLE AND YET...” She gestures towards the Changeling's lower half.

Lily blushed and pulled the blanket up over herself again quickly.

“Now start explaining before I get the whole rest of the team in here to find out whats what!” Ruby demanded, tapping her hoof impatiently. I walked into the room slowly and just stood quietly behind Ruby, glad it was my turn to be on the other end of the whole 'getting caught' thing.

“I...uhh...” Brutus stammered, pushing himself up in the bed slowly.

“Oh come on Ruby, it's not as bad as all that.” Lily muttered, her voice deeper and very masculine. 

“Don't take that tone of voice with me young lady...seriously use your normal voice, that weirds me out.” Ruby said. “Now I want answers, when did this become a thing?” She asked, gesturing to the bed.

Lily rolled her eyes and sat up slowly, the green magic field fading. “Brutus and I have been hanging out a lot since your bosses set up shop in the hospital outside of town. We ran into each other in the bar one night, had a few drinks, played darts, we had a good time so we decided to meet up again, have dinner...over time we found we kinda liked each other. After the Nightmare Night incident I realized I didn't have any life long plans when it came to a love life, or having children, or anything like that, and if Mare-Do-Well is an inherited title then I could hardly just give up on the organization...” She was obviously just making up excuses at this point, I could see the truth in Brutus's eyes and hear it in her voice, they were already madly in love by that point. Maybe I was getting better at reading body language? “...So I decided I wanted to take it to the next level with Brutus, I went to his room, told him how I felt, he told me he felt the same, and just like that our relationship had escalated to a whole new level. When I entered my feeding cycle this morning it opened my heart to Brutus's true, pure, unfiltered feelings for me, stronger and deeper than any love I've ever felt.” She smiled at him and kissed him lovingly. “So I took him as my mate.” She nodded, looking back at us. “He wanted to, I wanted to, we're both adults, and you're really in no position to judge.”

“Your mother is going to KILL you two.” Ruby sighed, rubbing her eyes with a hoof. “And don't even TRY to compare my relationship with Sugar to you two, we never kept it a secret, we never snuck around, and neither of us relies on love to survive. If you two ever broke up for any reason it could actually kill you.”

“The point isn't to hide from love when you need it just because you're afraid of it hurting you. You take a chance and go for it anyway. You need fire for heat, you don't keep away from it, you risk getting burned to keep it alive.”

I wanted to gag on the sentimentality and poetic nature of her statement, it sounded like something out of bad poetry, but at the same time who knows what infusions of love do to a Changeling's mind?

“Geeze...just...get your body back in order and get out of here before Firebird comes to check on you.” Ruby sighed, turning to me. “Well I guess you're off the hook for apologizing. Tell Paul I'm sorry I was so cold to him, I still want to poke and prod at him.” She smirked.

“I'll do that...Brutus you coming?”

“No, he's staying, Lily you go with Sugar.” Ruby said coldly, looking from her cousin to her friend and back. “I'll talk to you later.”

The Changeling pushed herself up out of the bed, magic changing her back to her normal form. “Don't worry, it'll be okay.” She said, kissing Brutus as she crawled past him.

“OUT!” Ruby snapped and the Changeling and I hurried out of the room, Ruby slamming the door behind us.

“Dammit Ruby...” Lily sighed, looking from the door back to me and slumping in defeat. “She wasn't supposed to find out like this.”

“I'm sorry Lily, but you know her...she's just worried about you and she knows Brutus better than anypony else in the world so she probably worries about him too. If you two did break up it would drive a wedge between you two and she would be stuck dealing with that.”

“Yeah I guess so.” She sighed deeply and looked up at me. “Don't suppose I could leech a little love out of you while we walk?”

“You don't have to touch me do you? You're sweaty and you reek of sex and I don't need to smell like sex with Brutus.” I smirked.

“Aww you're all heart.” She said, her body glowing green again and wrapping around both of us. It was an odd sensation, like something tugging at my chest, but not in a strong way. She groaned softly and smiled. “Good to know you feel so strongly about me.” She muttered, walking quietly down the hall with me.

“Yeah well what can I say? You're family, I can hardly turn you away.” I chuckled.

“Hey, where are you two going?” CB called, coming around the corner behind us.

“Uhh I'm going back to check on Paul, make sure he doesn't need any help.”

“And I'm going to get cleaned up so I can go back to being Mare-Do-Well for the night watch.”

“Why do you two smell so weird?”

“What? I don't smell weird.” I said quickly, moving away from Lily. “She smells weird. She was working on a machine and it started to leak on her.”

“Yeah I got lubricant everywhere.” Lily nodded, grinning stupidly at me and I just rolled my eyes.

“Hey has anyone seen Lily?” Firebird came around the corner just ahead of us and starting over to us. “Oh there you...” She stopped short when the scent reached her nose, and the change in her face was obvious.

“Lily broke a machine and it leaked lubricant on her.” CB explained.

“Yes...CB...go get Ruby please dear?” Firebird asked, struggling to keep calm. “It's an emergency.”

“Oh okay I'm on it.” She nodded, hurrying down the hall.

“What...the...fuck?” Firebird demanded.

“It's not what it looks like!” I said quickly, moving away from Lily again.

“You two REEK of sex, and you're all wrapped up in her love spell.”

“I don't reek of anything!” I whined. “I'm a good pony! Loyal to my pink pegasus.”

“We'll just wait until she gets here and we'll see what she has to say about it.” Firebird said coldly. She was a terrifying presence at the best of times, and right now she was still dressed in her armour, which made her look like she would just crush my skull if the need arose. 

“But Mom just listen!”

“Don't you 'But Mom' me young lady, I'm not some stupid naive foal, I know you have sex, I've known since your first time, but you're not supposed to do it with somepony taken.”

“I didn't...” Lily tried to argue but Firebird just waived her off.

“Don't bother, I don't want to hear it.” She said coldly.

I just sat quietly, unable to think of an argument, and really Firebird wasn't in the mood to listen.

I could hear Ruby and Brutus coming just moments before they rounded the corner, both looking beyond panicked.

“Firebird don't kill him!” Ruby cried, rushing down the hall and sliding to a stop between me and her Aunt.

“They were knocking hooves!”

“No they weren't, Lily and I were.” Brutus said quickly, blurting it out as he came up behind Lily and stopped.

“YOU and Lily? But you're into bucks.”

“Mom...Changeling remember?” Lily sighed, burning with embarrassment. 

“Alright fine.” Firebird said coldly. “You two...” She looked to me and Ruby. “On you go, Cane go shower, you smell like sex, the magic field keeps things like that in and it has saturated you too.” She looked back to the others. “You two, come with me, we're gonna have a talk.”

“Aww come on.” Brutus groaned. “I just finished getting chewed out by Ruby...”

“Yeah well you get to be chewed out again.” Firebird replied.

Ruby put a wing over my back and hurried me on away from the group before I could try to argue.

“Geeze, I was worried about Brutus when it was just the two of you...” I said once we were safely away from the group.

“Well I did give him an ear full...” She nodded. “But mostly I'm happy for them.” Ruby admitted. “Changelings can have a bad reputation sometimes, they tend to take on unsavoury jobs in the wasteland, it's a big part of the reason Lily only ever hung around town and worked in the store...kept her life small and no one wondered or worried.”

“She also gallivants around the wasteland as a superhero.”

“True, but she is in disguise so no one knows.”

“So what does that have to do with them? The whole bad rep thing?”

“I'm just worried about anyone seeing them and thinking the wrong things about a changeling being with a pony.”

“Well it's not like there's an abundance of changelings for them to pair up with.”

“Even still...”

“I think you're over thinking this...” I smiled. “So long as you're happy for them that's all they want I'm sure.”

She sighed and nodded. “You're right, and I am. It means they both have someone to love, and it means Brutus can have a child, which means Crackshot can continue her legacy of guardianship over her line.”

“Oh she'll be excited to hear that.” I paused outside of the hatch that lead down to the Crusader Computer. “I should check in with Paul...”

“Are you sure? You stink of sex...and not even your own sex.” Ruby said, sticking her tongue out.

“He doesn't know what this smell means, maybe I'm just gassy. He doesn't know what a recently sexed pony smells like.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I don't know what a recently sexed human smells like.” I grinned, opening the hatch. “Hey Paul?”

The human looked up from the table. “Hey Cane, how's everything going?”

“It's better now. It's a long story but Lily is sorry for freaking out earlier, and Ruby is sorry for being mad at you...aren't you Ruby?” I asked, looking at the pegasus expectantly.

“Uhh, yes I am sorry I got mad at you, I thought you had upset Lily and I feel very bad...I'm also kind of untrusting of guys I don't know well.” Ruby said, looking out at Paul, and ignoring the look I was giving her. “Please forgive me because I desperately want to study you before you leave...”

“I forgive you...I don't know about letting you study me though.” He smirked.

“How's the keyboard thing coming?” I asked.

“It's coming.” He gestured down to the table. He had pulled apart all the keyboards, stripped the wiring and contact membranes from them, now he had it all laid out across the table and was using a pair of box cutters to cut down the size. It looked like he had half a keyboard put together if I was right about approximately how many keys would be on it based on what he'd said earlier.

“It's getting late, I know you're probably inclined to work through the night, but we should probably call it for now. I have some ideas about getting the computer up and running again that we can go over tomorrow.”

“Yeah...probably not a bad idea.” He nodded, putting his tools down. “And I can just leave this stuff here for now?”

“Of course, no one else is coming in here. It's a secured facility.”

“Alright perfect.” He came over and climbed up the ladder, pulling the door closed behind him. “What happened to you? You stink.”

“Uhh I was trying to fix a vending machine and it leaked coolant on me.” I said quickly.

“Well go get cleaned up, you smell terrible.” He said.

“I plan to. You gonna come help me get cleaned up?” I grinned at Ruby.

“Well you don't have a horn anymore and I'm willing to bet you don't know how to wash yourself without your magic.”

“Gross...I don't wanna know how that all works.” Paul said, sticking his tongue out at us. “I'm just gonna go back to the hospital room?”

“I can show you to one of the living quarters if you want.” Ruby offered. “Sugar can still turn on water and stand under it, I also have a ton of questions I want to ask you.”

“Sure.” Paul nodded. We all walked down the hall, Paul explaining how his keyboard would work and Ruby peppering him with questions about his life and his world.

We reached the fork in the hall that lead towards the changing rooms and showers, it was a good thing that despite it's outwards build it still conformed to the standard building layout of our other facilities, I could walk it blindfolded. “Alright well I guess I'll talk to you in the morning.” I said to Paul.

“Yeah, good night Dr. Cane.” He smirked.

“And to you Dr. Cane.” I laughed, starting off down the hall. He and Ruby continued down the other hall, talking about something called hand cranks, which Ruby found fascinating.

I wandered down the hall by myself, into the first changing room and wandering towards the showers at the back of the room, leaving the door that lead to the hallway propped open so Ruby would know where to find me. I stripped off my barding all too happily. I had been wearing it for almost 20 hours, my body was practically clean underneath the armour. I tossed it onto a bench and got into the first stall, turning on the hot water and just sinking down to sit underneath the stream of water. All the problems of the day, all the crazy things that had happened, none of it mattered right now. I just focused on the hot water and letting it wash the dirt from my body. I looked at the soap dispenser built into the wall and tried with all my heart to make my magic depress the button and give me soap, but nothing happened. I didn't feel the familiar swelling of magic, the light of my horn...nothing. It broke my heart. I felt so incomplete, so empty...

They talked about Earth ponies having their own kind of magic, which was what made them so good at tending the land, developing our textiles and railway systems, most of the best weapons manufacturers had been Earth Pony companies, and of course a pegasus can fly and control the weather, that's where their magic lies, but not me...I had no magic. I felt like I was missing a part of my body...of course I was, my horn was gone, but never in my life had I ever felt so hollow.

I just sat in the hot water and let it rain down on me. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew I was getting kissed on the muzzle and looked up to see Ruby standing in front of me, the water of the shower still soaking her coat. “Hey there sleepy head.” She smiled. “How long have you been asleep in here?”

“I dunno...how long ago did we split up?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Then probably about 55 minutes.” I laughed softly.

“Geeze Sugar, I can't leave you alone for five minutes can I?” she sighed, nuzzling my cheek gently.

I returned the gesture and looked at her curiously. "How did you end up in my bed so much when you didn't know me that well and were obviously worried about it?"

"Booze, lots of booze." She said seriously.

"Don't wanna talk about it?"

"Not in the least." She said flatly. "How bout we talk about why you look so down in the dumps?

“Just the pressure of the day catching up with me now that I've finally had a chance to slow down and think about it, I lost my brother, I lost my magic, I'm facing the almost impossible task of getting Paul home without somepony sacrificing themselves to power the Crusader Computer...” She silenced me with another kiss and sat down in front of me.

“I think you're over thinking everything right now. Venture was a bad guy, we stopped him, we HAD to stop him.”

“I know, but I'd hoped to stop him without killing him.”

“You don't know that you killed him. He might still be alive in Paul's reality.”

“Fat lot of good that does me.” I sighed dejectedly.

“As for your magic, it might come back, I've read of ponies having their horns grow back.”

“You heard what Xeha said about overpowering the talisman with energy, you can burn out your magic permanently.”

“Well maybe we can find a solution.” She suggested and I just shrugged. I wasn't really in the mood for being pandered to.

“You should empty your brain.” Ruby sighed, resting her head against my neck.

“What do you mean?”

“Round up some memory orbs and extract all your troubles and worries, not just copy, but take right out so you can't remember them for now. I tried it once, worked wonders for most of my worries.”

“Most?”

“Well it was a tricky process and not totally successful. I got most of the junk out of my brain, but not all of it. Made life easier to handle though.”

“What happened in your life that you had to do that?” I asked, looking down at her face.

“Don't worry about it, it was a long time ago, I don't like to think about it, maybe I'll tell you one day.”

“Well...alright...” I nodded, remembering what Brutus had told me of her past and her less than successful trip to the Enclave.

“But yeah, get some memory orbs, dump your worries in them for now and just leave it for a while.”

“It's not that simple.” I sighed, smiling sadly. “Memory orbs and memory cubes are complex storage devices that mimic the brain in remarkable ways, they shouldn't be wasted on making myself feel better.”

“Well maybe you should just put your whole brain into them and start fresh.” She chuckled. “Just keep your memories of me and I'll help you rebuild the rest of your life.”

“Yeah...” I paused and looked quietly at the wall for a moment. “Wait...that's not a bad idea...”

“What? Sugar I was kidding, I don't want you wiping your memory.”

“No no, not that. I know how to get Paul home!” I grinned, pulling back from her. “I know what to do! Go get CB, Brutus and Lily!” I ran out of the shower. “MEET ME IN THE CRUSADER ROOM! BRING ALL THE MEMORY ORBS AND CUBES YOU CAN!” I yelled as I ran through the changing room. “AND GET LILY TO BRING THE MEMORY INTERFACE COMPUTER!” I tore out the door and down the hall, still soaking wet and leaving a trail of water behind me.

“PAUL! PAUL!” I yelled, racing through the living area until I found the single indicator on my E.F.S. and ran to the door and pounded on it. “PAUL! GET YOUR ASS UP! I KNOW HOW TO GET YOU HOME!”

He pulled the door open, still pulling his jumpsuit back into place. “What? How do you know what to do?”

“Because Ruby is a bucking genius!”

“Why are you naked and wet?”

“Oh I was in the shower. Come on!” I took off down the hallway at full speed and he struggled to even keep me in sight. I hit the door, pausing to shake as much water from myself as I could, then yanked the door open and leapt down to the platform, running to the control pod. Paul finally appeared at the top of the ladder a minute later, panting and wheezing from the effort of running.

“Geeze...Sugar...slow...down...” He panted, climbing down the ladder slowly. “Shouldn't you put some pants on or something?”

“What? Why?” I looked up from the control pod at him.

“Well do you normally run around naked?”

“Well...no...but clothing is an optional thing...” I shrugged. “Come on, grow up and help me, grab the tools and come over here.”

He sighed and just shook his head, grabbing the tools from the table and coming over. “So care to fill me in on the plan?”

“Memory Orbs.” I said, pulling open a panel and starting to dig through the wires. It was a lot harder without my magic but I was determined.

“Memory Orbs?”

“They're magical orbs used to store memories and emotions. Like I could copy all my memories of my life before being frozen, it would fill dozens of orbs, but anyone could pick up one of the orbs and view it, and see and experience my life through me.”

“So?”

“So? SO!? So memory orbs work like magical brains, they retain the information forever, and we have memory Cubes that are interactive, they're even more complex. Grab that thick wire and strip the cover and insulation.” I said and he leaned in beside me to start doing just that. “So we should be able to create a bunch of memory orbs and cubes and use a computer interface to power the computer instead of having to use an actual live pony to run it.”

“So that'll get me home?”

“It's a safe bet.” I nodded. “Cut the red, purple and black wires and strip them to the base copper.” I said, pulling back and moving to a supply cabinet and pulling lengths of cable out, letting the spools of cable fall around my neck and coming back over. “Here.” I set them down beside him. “Strip these around the ends and attach them to each end of the cables you just cut, run the wires long enough that we could wrap them all the way around the table twice if we have to, then cut them in the middle so we have exposed pieces out here to work with.”

“Yes sir.” He smirked, setting to work on the wiring.

“What's all the commotion?” Brutus asked, coming down the ladder with Lily and Firebird, the two younger ones looking thoroughly chagrined, though they also looked relieved that they were away from Firebird's wrath. Lily had the memory computer in her magical grasp as she floated down to the ground beside us.

“I know how to get Paul home.” I beamed. “Put the computer in the pod.” I said to Lily, then looked from her to Brutus. “I'm going to need to borrow both of your magic to record some memory orbs to power the machine.”

“Memory orbs will act as a stand in for the Pony CPU?”

“Temporarily yes. We're going to use a re-collector to have Paul create a memory cube of his world, then we're going to interface with it, learn of his world and imprint those memories into orbs, then we're going to use the last spacial settings of the Crusader Computer and the Megaspell to hopefully reactivate it with a steady link to Paul's universe, but the orbs will probably burn out in a matter of minutes at best.”

“What's going on?” CB asked tiredly. She had three cases of memory orbs in her magical grasp, as well as a pair of re-collectors and she was leaning tiredly against Xem, who looked equally tired.

“CB sweetie I'm glad you're here. I need your magic to help make memory orbs so Paul can go home.”

“Couldn't this wait until morning?” She whined, floating herself and Xem down to the main floor.

“Would you want to spend a whole night in a weird place with none of your friends or family?”

She sighed and shook her head. “No...I wouldn't.” She yawned as she spoke, setting the boxes of memory orbs down. Lily took the re-collectors and started fiddling with the controls.

“Well you two can crash out for a little longer anyway, I need Paul to do some other work before I'm ready for you.”

“Good...” CB said, moving off the platform and flopping in a corner of the room. Xem lay down beside her and the two were asleep in a matter of moments.

“Wow, they really get along well with each other.” Firebird said, watching them quietly for a moment.

“Yeah it's how soul mates tend to work. Perfect harmonious compatibility.”

“I've seen you and Ruby fight.” Firebird laughed.

“Well nopony agrees with everything another says all the time.” I shrugged.

“How do you know those two are soul mates?” Paul asked.

“Long story, too long to try and explain.” I said. “I need you to do something else instead.” I walked over and pushed one of the re-collectors over to him once Lily was done with them. “Put this on, we're going to create a memory cube to create the other orbs from.

“How does it work?” He asked, picking up the re-collector and looking at it curiously before slowly putting it on. It was a little big for him but it still fit, and the indicator light still came on. I took a memory cube and slid the rounded bottom into the base.

“All you do is think about your world. The way the outside looks, sights, sounds smells. It'll record it all and create an interactive world for us to see to create our own memory orbs. Just don't think of sex and you'll be fine.”

“What?! Why would you tell me that? Now I'm not gonna be able to stop thinking about it, you bastard...” He grumbled. I just smirked and hit the switch to start the recording process. He got quiet, sitting back on the floor and closing his eyes. “This is weird...” He said softly, opening his eyes and looking up at me. “It's like my memories are flowing through my brain, I can feel them leaving but they're still there when I go back to them.”

“Yeah we're just copying them, the re-collector is able to just pull memories right out but it's not a pleasant process and I'd rather avoid it myself, I would never force it on someone else unless they deserved it.”

He just nodded and closed his eyes again, his face scrunching thoughtfully from time to time as the memory cube slowly got brighter and brighter until he finally gasped sharply and opened his eyes again. “Geeze you didn't tell me the cut off was so abrupt.” He sighed, taking the re-collector off and putting it back on the table. He rubbed at the side of his head with his hands and sighed again. “That leaves you with a hell of a headache.”

“Sorry, I don't know how to calibrate it for a human, it was kind of a shot in the dark.” Lily said.

“S'okay. I think I got it all done anyway.”

“So what is it of?”

“Well for accuracies sake I tried to put together the area I was in before getting pulled through the portal.”

“Good idea.” I nodded. “Alright I guess I'll go through it first.” I put the re-collector on and Lily reset it quickly for me, sliding a pair of memory orbs into it as well.

“And away...we...go...”

~/~/~/o0o0o0o0o0o0o\~\~\~

The world I found myself in was...interesting...it looked so much like Equestria, but with a lot of subtle differences. The husks of some kind of enclosed carriages sat along the road, long ago abandoned. Giant faded billboards advertised Nuka-Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla and had smiling humans on them. Huge mountains rose in the distance and a short walk away I could see the walled entrance of a town.

“So yeah this is it.” Paul's voice, my voice, still creepy, made me jump and I turned to see him standing on the side of the road. “I don't know what to say or put into this...I was on my way to that town in the distance, it's called The Hub, it used to be a major drug den, but it's been pretty well cleaned up in the last few years, it's a nice town now. The memory should expand almost to the edge of town, but I dunno how this all works.” He shrugged and vanished. So I started down the road. There were empty houses, they looked so plain and simple compared to the homes I remembered back in my time, even the shells of homes I passed nowadays in the wasteland...

“There's a series of caves up there.” He pointed to a cliff behind us. “Yao Guai live there, most everyone that passes this way tries to give it a wide berth.” He walked across the street as he talked, then stopped and pointed to the mountains to the south. “There's an Enclave base a week or so from here called Navarro, it's got helicopters called Vertibirds, they can cover most of the wasteland pretty fast. A few years ago some wasteland native marched in there and stole a bunch of tech and ended up killing the president.” He leaned against one of the enclosed carriages. “Sorry I didn't pick a more scenic location, this is just where I was so I figured it was the best location to go wi....” It cut off and I was dumped back into the real world abruptly.

~/~/~/o0o0o0o0o0o0o\~\~\~

“Ow, dammit...” I groaned, rubbing my head. “It does end abruptly.”

“Yeah, dunno what's up with that.” Paul said. 

“Did I get enough?”

“Yeah looks good.” Lily nodded, pulling the memory orbs from the re-collector and looking at them.

“Alright Brutus, now you.” I said, tossing him the re-collector. He nodded and put it on, Lily loaded new memory orbs into it and he sat down then zoned out as it loaded. “How's the rewire work going?” I asked Paul.

“It's about done.” He said, pulling the last spool of wire out and running out the extra lengths before cutting it off and splitting it.

“Perfect.” I smiled and turned back to the others. “Lily can you get the computer set up and plugged in and when it's done pop the casing off so we can rewire it into the system?”

“You got it boss.” She nodded, lifting the rest of the computer parts up and starting to work setting it up. I looked up at the others, realizing Ruby had joined us at some point, my barding and bags sat in the corner behind her.

“Firebird, Ruby, can you two run interference with the council if we're not finished by morning?”

“Yeah that'll be easy.” Firebird smirked.

“Good. Lily, once Brutus rejoins us here in the real world reload the system and do yours?”

“Eeyup.” She nodded, powering up the computer to make sure it loaded properly.

“Ruby, can I talk to you alone?”

“We gonna finish what we started in the shower?” She smirked.

“Yeah I was thinking we would yeah.” I just nodded and her smirk faltered.

“Sugar I don't think now is the time.”

“Come on.” I laughed, climbing up the ladder and moving back into the hallway. “Lily, if I'm not back before you finish, reset the system and get CB going?” She nodded and I turned to Ruby.

She came up behind me and we moved down the hall a short distance.

“I...”

“...Need to go with Paul.” Ruby finished and I just sort of looked at her curiously. “Yeah I'm not dumb. Paul made it through the portal with no problems, Venture probably survived going into the other world too and you need to go get him.”

“Yeah...and you're okay with that?”

“Not really, but I know anything I say will be met with arguments and long winded explanations, all I want to know is, how do you intend to get home? There's no magic in Paul's world, we don't even know if your magic will work. What if you get over there and you turn into the mindless creature that Paul told me ponies are in that world?”

“They make up for a lack of magic with some amazing technology that works in very similar ways. I'm sure we can replicate the process on the other end. If our worlds continue to basically run parallel that means that his version of Venture will have made his own machine for crossing dimensions and we'll use that to get back.”

“You're assuming you can stop him.”

“Not just him, him AND Venture.” I smirked. “It's gonna be a hell of a party.”

“If your magic fails or you turn into a mindless idiot?”

“I don't have any magic anymore,” I rubbed the stump of my lost horn dejectedly, “and when we pass through the portal if something like that happens to me Paul will send me right back through, we'll keep it open as long as possible to make sure.”

“Alright...” She sighed. “Just...come back to us safe right?”

“Of course.” I nodded. “What if we have a baby? Someone has to help you raise him...or her.”

“Damned straight...” She nodded. “I just don't like the thought of you doing this alone.”

“Ahem.” A voice announced from beside us. We turned and saw Lily and Brutus standing together a short distance away. “I'm going with you too.”

“What?!” Ruby and I demanded together.

“I don't think so!” Ruby said, stepping forward. “You think you're Mom was mad when she found out you two were shacking up?”

“It was her idea.” Lily said. “I'm Mare-Do-Well. I'm sworn to protect ponies who struggle to protect themselves. I have magic, I can fly, and most importantly,” She closed her eyes and turned into a human again, “I can blend in better than you could ever hope to.” She smirked. “Besides you need the extra help to carry the re-collector and extra orbs so we can rewire Castor's machine?”

“Who's Castor?”

“Paul's brother.” Brutus said. “His Venture.”

“Of course.” I nodded. “Should have realized.”

“So yeah, I'm coming.” Lily said again.

“Well if your mom is okay with it I can hardly say no to help that can fly and use magic. It should very very much come in handy.”

“Damned straight.” She smirked. “Now lets get back to the control room.” She turned and started back down the hall with Brutus beside her, the two of them talking quietly to each other.

“You promise me you'll be careful right Sugar?” Ruby asked.

“Of course I will. I'll do everything I can to make sure I come home in one piece.”

“Alright.” She nodded and we followed the others back to the control room. I crawled back down the ladder just in time to hear Paul explode again.

“COME ON! SERIOUSLY!” He was yelling a Lily and had buried his head in his hands. “I know you people...ponies...bug things...whatever you are...” He flailed an arm in the general direction of Lily. “Are comfortable going without clothing but it's a serious matter in my world. Clothes are essential unless you're a very young child or a prostitute. Please put that dress back on.”

“Alright alright, don't get your mane in a bunch.” Lily sighed, pulling the dress from her pack and pulling it on quickly. “Better?” She asked, straightening it out and pulling on the ceramic armour over top of it.

“Much.” He nodded, looking up again and sighing, going back to the computer. He had the big keyboard wired into the computer and seemed to have it working nicely.

“When did you finish that?” I asked, coming over and looking at it. He had roughly carved each letter number and symbol into the keyboard, it was probably almost as big as him if it was stood on end.

“It was almost finished earlier. Once I finished recording the memory cube for you and getting the computer wired up I put the finishing touches on it and here we are. I just modified the programming for the normal keyboard on here and now it works, it's about 4 times bigger than one I'm used to but it's more than usable.”

“Alright well...Paul...We're going with you.”  I said.

“What do you mean?” He asked, looking up from the computer.

“Lily and I are going with you to your world. I have to find Venture and bring him back to face justice if he's still alive.”

“And Lily?” He asked, looking up at the Changeling curiously.

“She's my guard.” I smirked.

“I can fly and use magic, no matter what form I'm in.” She said, floating silently into the air and throwing balls of energy from her hands that exploded like green fireworks above our heads.

“Well shit...that would be a world of help. You'd be like a superhero.” He said softly, which made the rest of the group burst out laughing, much to Paul's confusion.

CB gasped loudly and shot to her hooves. I hadn't realized she was laying beside the pod, still loading her orbs for the system. “Owww...” She groaned, rubbing furiously at her head and pulling the re-collector off her head angrily, setting it down in the pod again.

“Thank you CB.” I smiled, hugging her and kissing her horn. “Give it a few minutes, it fades pretty quickly.” She grumbled angrily but just returned the hug, shaking a little bit. “CB...I'm going with Paul...”

“What!?” She looked up at me with big sad puppy dog eyes and suddenly I could see every abandonment issue she had welling up in her tears. “You can't go!” She sobbed, hugging me tightly.

“CB wait, just listen. I'm only going for a little while.” I said, returning her hug. “I have to go and make sure that my brother can't hurt anypony else. If he's in Paul's world he could do all kinds of terrible things with his magic, hurt so many humans, and they'd never know or understand why. I need to go find him and make sure he is stopped once and for all. I swear I'm coming back as soon as I do that.”

“But...but...” She whimpered, pressing into my side to hide the tears now. “I need you...Please daddy don't go away...I can't keep losing parents.” She whispered.

“CB you aren't going to lose me, I'm still here, I'll come back. You have Ruby, you have Brutus, you have Crackshot and Firebird, they'll all be here for you and they'll all take care of you.”

“But I want YOU to take care of me.”

“And I intend to, but this something I have to do CB, I can't leave Venture out there free to do who knows what, he's my responsibility.”

“I'M your responsibility too.” She looked up at me with pleading eyes and for a moment I could genuinely feel my heart breaking like it hadn't since EB had died and a huge part of me suddenly didn't care what happened to Venture off in the other world, I just wanted to stay here and protect CB, but before I could say anything Xem came over and put a hoof on CB's shoulder.

“CB listen, for I speak true, even if everypony else leaves, I'll be here for you.” He said, hugging her lovingly. She shifted back a bit and moved into his embrace. “Day or night, night or day, my love for you shall never sway.” He kissed her horn and she sobbed softly, hugging him tighter.

“I love you too Xem...” She whispered, holding him quietly for a minute before turning back to me. “Fine, you can go Daddy...just don't be gone long...and bring me back something nice.” She forced a smile and I laughed.

“I'm sure I can manage something yes.” I nodded.

“Well alright...I suppose you can go.” She finally said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I...am going to bed.” She said, yawning and stretching, clearly exaggerating the actions and moving to the ladder, floating herself up to the door and vanishing into the hallway before anyone could say anything.

I turned and looked at Xem, who was clearly kind of embarrassed by the whole situation. “SO...do we need to talk about that?” I asked.

“N...No of course not.” He said quickly, laughing nervously. “I'm a complete gentle-colt, she's my best friend and I would lay my life down to protect her from harm, I would never do anything to compromise that relationship.”

“You sound very nervous about the whole thing.” I smirked.

“Why'd you start talking in rhyme?” Lily asked.

“It happens when I'm not focusing, I just slip back into my accent.”

“So you intentionally don't speak in rhyme? I thought maybe that was a learned thing.”

“No, it's how we're raised and taught and think. It's learned the same way any other language is learned.” He shrugged. “So I suppose yes it is a learned thing.”

“Why don't you always talk in rhyme?”

“Because nopony else does. I don't exactly have a lot of zebra friends and I find it easier to just communicate the same as everyone else.”

“You sure you're not just embarrassed?” Ruby smirked.

“Okay fine, it's just really hard to think up things that rhyme. You have to have a razor sharp mind, you need to be thinking all the time. Two steps ahead not two steps back, you need to keep your wits about you to not fall off track. So if we could just drop the subject that would be keen, I'm too tired for this bullshit, if you know what I mean.”

“That middle big wasn't a very good rhyme.” Paul said.

“Eat me.” Xem said, rolling his eyes and starting for the ladder.

“Cute kid.” Paul smirked.

“Good night!” Xem yelled, slamming the door behind him.

“Sorry I said anything.” Paul sighed.

“Don't worry about it, kids are weird.” Crackshot said.

“So you're really coming with me?”

“Absolutely. I have to find Venture and put him down.”

“Well alright, so what do we do now?”

“We can't do anything else for a few hours.” I said, taking all the memory orbs and sliding them into the slots on the computer. “The computer is going to need a while to recalibrate for these.” I moved to the keyboard and started it up again. “Why doesn't everyone go get some sleep while I get this going? There's nothing else anyone else can do for now. We should meet back here in...5 hours...Lily I assume you have to pack?”

“Yeah I should get on that.” She nodded. The group talked a little about our upcoming trip but they wandered off pretty quickly until it was just me and Ruby.

“How long are you going to be?” She asked, leaning over my shoulder and watching me curiously as I worked.

“Just 15-20 minutes I think. Venture already wrote the software, I just need to run and modify it.”

“Alright well hurry up.” She sighed. “I want another shot at making a baby with you before you leave.” She grinned, kissing my cheek.

“Is that seriously all you ever think about? I have feelings you know. I need to feel loved. Taken for dinner, showered with affection, praised, maybe a hoofacure from time to time.” I smirked, looking over at her without pausing in my typing.

“When you get back maybe.” She laughed, settling down on the floor and snuggling into my side, drifting off to sleep while I worked. An hour later I was finally actually finished and nudged her gently. “Hey, wake up, it's time to go to bed.” She yawned and pushed herself up. 

“You took too long...”

“It's an imprecise science that requires precise calculations.” I sighed, climbing up the ladder. She flew up and opened the door, drifting into the hall and landing to wait for me. I reached the top and moved into the hall, closing the door behind me. 

Ruby cuddled back against me and we started off down the hall. We found an empty room and crashed out on the bed. Despite her flirtations Ruby was asleep in a matter of minutes and I just set an alarm and snuggled up with her and went to sleep.

When we got back together I was glad to see the computer was finished, locked and loaded and ready to accept the new control core.

Lily was in human form, dressed and ready to go, her saddlebags had been modified into a pack she could wear on her back and she had Brutus's shotgun slung to her back. CB and Xem were no shows but everyone else was there, though most still looked exhausted.

“Alright, lets fire this up and get on our way shall we?” Paul asked, pulling his pack back on and moving to the middle of the room to stand where the portal had appeared the last time, Lily following suit. I made some final preparations and completed the system reset. I threw my saddlebags on and pulled my armoured barding straight and looked to Brutus.

“Once we're in place, just hit the two keys and the program will load and the mega-spell will activate. I doubt it'll work for more than a minute before the orbs burn out, load up a new set of orbs when that happens, give us a week and reopen the portal. You can use the computer to send a data burst to my pipbuck through the radio network. My pipbuck will transmit back all my vital stats and I'll be able to include any other information I type out and send before the portal crashes again."

“Alright.” He said, moving to the computer as I joined the other two in the middle of the room. "Just, be careful."

“Ready for my world?” Paul asked, looking down at me.

“As ready as I can be.” I nodded. “Lily?”

“Scared out of my mind,” She shrugged, “but I've dealt with worse.”

“Alright Brutus, hit it!” I called. The crusader computer powered up and the machines chugged to life, after a moment the floor lit up and the mega-spell portal appeared in the middle of the room, the area beyond clearly the same as the area I had seen in Paul's memories. We all walked forward together and passed through the gate, the light becoming overwhelmingly bright, and we left the Equestrian wasteland behind.


Footnote: Level cap raised. Level up.

Perk added: Hornless: Having been forced to adapt to circumstances you no longer have access to magic but you have worked out much better ways to work around those shortcomings resulting in increased intelligence and +5 to all skills.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.
You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat on Equestria Daily
The Fallout: Equestria logo used above was designed by DotRook, who, according to the original deviantArt page, allows usage in supplementary materials created for and associated with the series. Images really do make a difference, so he has our eternal gratitude and respect.
If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan
The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2:

The pain...oh sweet Celestia the pain...Fire burned through my body, every inch of me hurt as I've never hurt before, in the distance I could hear screaming, despite the blindingly white light, darkness was eating away at the edges of my vision and I felt myself crash down against something hard and the contents of my stomach empty violently as the light, and pain, faded. I found myself collapsed on my side in the middle of a street, my head was still pounding, my ears ringing. In the distance I could hear someone calling my name, but after a moment I realized it wasn't in the distance, Lily and Paul stood over me, both looking terrified.

“Cane? CANE!” Lily was yelling at me but she sounded so far away. She was glowing green and I could feel her magic wrap around me to lift and carry me. Paul was holding my hoof and studying my pipbuck. 

“It says there's nothing wrong with him.” Paul's voice was starting to sound clearer. Lily carried me off the road and set me down on the ground along the side. They were talking to each other, looking back and forth from me to each other and back, but they were just talking and I couldn't make out what they said.

I just lay quietly for a long time, trying to recover myself. Finally I looked up at Lily, still in her human form...it would take time to get used to that, who had sat down and put my head in her lap. 

“What...happened?” I croaked.

“Well, it's good news, and weird news.” She said, stroking my mane gently. “We made it through the portal with no problem, it closed behind us within seconds. Paul and I were fine, but you started screaming and collapsed in a heap, you threw up pretty badly all over the road then started convulsing, but you settled down a few seconds later and we've just been hanging out waiting for you to recover.”

“Is that the good news or the weird news?”

“Well I hate to spoil the fun of the good news.” She laughed. “Want to see?” She pulled a small mirror from her pack and held it out, using her magic to slide it along my side so I could see. I was amazed to see my body restored, all the burns and scars I had suffered in the pyro attack were gone, my soft blue coat again smooth and unmarred. “Look what else.” She turned the mirror further down and I saw the familiar, and long missed, double helix mark on my side.

“MY CUTIE MARK!” I yelped excitedly, like a child getting their mark for the first time. I jumped to my hooves and grabbed the mirror from her, holding it so I could see the mark better. “Geeze I never thought I'd see it again, I never realized just how much I missed it until now...” I blinked back tears and grinned at Lily stupidly. “Do I get a cute-ceañera?”

“You're kind of an idiot aren't you?” She asked.

“What do you mean?” 

She gestured to the mirror and I realized it was floating in the blue field of my magic, not the green of hers. I drew the mirror back to my face and squeed with more excitement than I'd have thought was possible after seeing my cutie mark restored, as I saw the blue horn again restored to my forehead.

“Oh thank Celestia, I didn't want to have to learn how to live without it...” I said, sitting down and grabbing at my horn with my fore-hooves, tugging it a little in disbelief to make sure it wasn't going to fall off or anything.

“I'm glad to see you're up and about unicorn boy.” Paul said, coming off the road. “You look better this way...less war torn, but how?”

“I...don't know. You said when I went through the portal I started screaming?” I asked, looking back at Lily and she nodded.

“Hmm...”

“I hate to interrupt your deep thought, but we should head to town, it's getting late and I don't want to be out on the highway at night.”

“Fair enough.” I said and the three of us started down the road.

“Cane, one thing.” Lily said. “You realize you can't walk around here talking right?”

“The thought had crossed my mind yes.”

“Well Paul and I were talking and we've come up with an idea about that, because according to him, there's no such thing as a blue pony in this world, let alone a blue unicorn pony, so we're going to pretend you're our pack pony, carrying our extra equipment, and if anyone asks about the look we have a whole story made up about it.”

“Yeah, worse comes to worse and you need to talk? We'll just tell anyone who asks that I do ventriloquism with you.” Paul laughed.

“That's fucked up.” I smirked. “But I suppose it would work.” I shrugged.

We reached the edge of town and a guard stepped forward. “Welcome to The Hub...” He paused and studied me curiously, but turned his attention back to Paul and Lily. “This is a clean town now, no drugs are sold, no drugs are bought, and no drugs are allowed in town unless they are under the strict control of the medical staff.”

“Of course.” Paul nodded. “I'm very familiar with the rules of the town. We sold all our stronger medicines to a caravan heading for the Bone-yard yesterday. We don't have anything stronger on us than Stim-Paks and some medicine for the horse if he gets hurt.”

“You won't mind submitting to a search of your belongings then.”

“Not at all, but you have to do it one pack at a time and under our constant supervision, because I don't want any of my stuff 'vanishing' from my pack.” Lily said coolly.

“Not at all.” The guard said. Lily pulled her pack off and the guard went through it. All she had packed in it were a few of the dresses she'd had earlier, a plasma pistol Paul had given her so she had a normal human weapon, and Brutus's shotgun, complete with the bite grip still, which of course was massive for a human.

“What kind of shotgun is this?” The guard asked, holding it out and looking curiously at the bite grip.

“It's for someone who doesn't have hands.” Lily explained. “My father lost the use of his hands, we started making him custom equipment that he can hold in his mouth.”

“Wouldn't the recoil break all his teeth?”

Lily took the shotgun, sliding just the trigger into her mouth, using the rest of the bite grip to steady the gun against her cheeks and fired the gun into a tree on the side of the road. She blew a big hole in the tree and knocked off a number of branches.

“Impressive.” The guard nodded. Lily put the gun back in her pack and put the pack back on. He turned to me and again studied me curiously, but just smiled. “Now you little guy.” He said, gently taking my saddlebags off, stroking my back gently as he did, which I found odd, but Paul had said that most animals enjoyed being stroked or scratched as a form of interaction so I just shifted a little while the guard set down the saddlebags and went through them. He looked at the healing potions he'd pulled out of the bag.

“Those are the medicine for him.” Paul said. “You're welcome to try it if you want, it's just the same stuff that goes into a Stim-Pack, just in a bottled form so it's easier for him to ingest. Needles tend to send em running when you stick em.”

He popped the cork from one and sniffed it.

“Here...” Lily took the bottle from him and took a swig from the bottle before handing it back to him. “Happy? Not poison, not drugs, just medicine.”

“Alright fine.” He looked at Ebony and Ivory, Paul explaining they were spares for his own guns that he used for replacement parts, hence the missing triggers on mine, and the grenades, which Lily explained were indeed grenades, disguised to look like simple household decoration to fool unsuspecting intruders of your home, or to throw off attackers.

“Why does your horse have a pipboy? That's expensive tech to waste on an animal.”

“He can carry 500 pounds of equipment, would you want to manually go through everything any time you needed to find something?”

“Fair enough.” The guard shrugged, going through Paul's stuff. This was a much quicker process because he didn't carry any Equestrian tech so it didn't need any extra explanation. He had a large supply of Stim-Packs, a huge bag of bottlecaps, and clip after clip of ammo for Ebony and Ivory, as well as his magazines and some random scrap electronics. “Alright you guys are good to go, just don't misbehave.”

“We'll be on our best behaviour.” Lily nodded and we started inside. Once we were away from anyone in the immediate area I looked at Lily.

“How DID you fire the shotgun without breaking your teeth?”

She just grinned, her mouth glowing magically. “Used it to absorb the shock.”

“Clever.” Paul laughed.

“Thanks.” Lily nodded. “So where are we going?”

“Dinner I think, then we get a motel room and crash out, then plan where to go from here in the morning.” He lead us to a big building in the centre of town. “This used to be a base for a crime boss. He was one of the things that were 'cleaned up' here back in the day. Now it's been split into two sections, one is a restaurant, the other is the town inn.”

I paused outside the door of the restaurant not sure that a normal pack animal would go in with them. “Come on Sugar.” Paul said. “You're not that much bigger than a normal pet, and I know you'll be well behaved.”

I followed him into the warehouse area, why did warehouses always seem to get converted into restaurants and inns? Lots of space I suppose. Lily and I walked over to a booth in the corner and I sat on the floor beside her, Paul went up to the bar, and form the way he kept gesturing towards us and talking to the bartender he was making sure it really was okay for me to be there, and promising I'd be on my best behaviour.

“Aww come on!” A familiar young voice cried. Lily and I both looked up to the doors of the restaurant. A young blond girl came through the doors. She wore metal armour and had two bandoliers of grenades strapped in an X across her chest, and some mean looking mines on the back part of the bandoliers, as well as a pair of pistols at her hips. She was arguing with a tall muscular man. His skin was very pale and covered in small dark spots, his hair was an almost fiery orange in the light of the setting sun.

“Don't you 'aww come on me' young lady.” He rolled his eyes.

“But...”

“Ahh ahh, don't care.” He said flatly. “Just because a bunch of kids are going up to the Yao Guai cave to get eaten doesn't mean I'm okay with you going.”

“We're not gonna get eaten!”

“You're right, you won't because I'm not letting you go.”

A woman followed behind them, chuckling at the conversation. She was tall and skinny, her hair was pink with blond all around the base. She wore clothes that were probably a little big for her lanky frame and she had a mean looking plasma caster on her back. She looked worn and hardened by the wasteland, like you'd expect her to be a constantly angry at the world bandit, but she was laughing and smiling with ease.

“Come on Ruby!” The girl said to her.

“Nope. I completely agree. Yao Guai are no joke, I don't want to put you in danger like that, I don't care what the other kids will think.”

“A...are we looking at human versions of CB, Brutus and Ruby?” Lily asked softly in my ear.

“I...I think so.” I whispered.

They walked further into the restaurant, still arguing.

“What are you two looking at?” Paul asked, sitting down with a menu from the bar.

“Your soon to be best friends I think.” Lily said, watching them vanish around the bar to the far side of the restaurant.

“My what?” He looked over but didn't see them.

“I think that was the human counterparts of my friends.” I said softly.

“Oh...well what are we going to do about it?”

“I don't know.” Lily said. “I want to find a way to weasel into their group but I can't begin to imagine how...lets just eat for now and we'll see what comes of it.”

“Alright.” Paul said, looking down at the menu. “What do you want to eat?” He asked, looking to me, since I couldn't order for myself when the waiter came along.

“Uhh, apples, carrots, bacon...some combination of those if it's possible?”

“You eat bacon?”

“Yeah, bacon is awesome.”

“But I thought you mostly ate...”

“Bacon.” I interrupted.

“And...”

“Bacon.” I cut him off again and he just rolled his eyes.

“Yes sir.” He nodded, passing the menu to Lily.

“Oh I'm not hungry.” She said, setting the menu back on the table. “After recharging my batteries I don't need to eat real food for probably a month.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged.

“Excuse me.” A familiar voice spoke up from behind me. I jumped a bit in surprise and turned my head towards the voice, Lily and Paul looking up from the table. CB, or who I assumed was CB, stood a few steps behind me, human Ruby standing just a few steps behind her.

“Yes?” Lily asked, looking at them and smiling.

“I don't want to interrupt...” She paused, clearly trying to think through a statement that had been given to her by the adults. “...But I was just wondering if I could get a closer look at your pony friend? I've never seen one up close, especially not a blue unicorn.”

“Well you should probably ask him.” Paul said. “He's a unicorn after all, he's magic, so he can talk.”

She looked at him intently for a minute, clearly assessing just how much he was lying, but looked at me again. “Is it okay if I pet you Mr. Unicorn?” She asked me.

“Well I suppose.” I answered, making her eyes go wide in shock, even Ruby looked shocked, but she recognized that Paul and I had the same voice and just smiled. “Just be gentle.”

She nodded and took another step forward, reaching out and stroking my mane gently. I pressed against her hand a little and she smiled brightly, getting bolder with her contact. “What's your name?”

“Sugar Cane.” I answered. “What's your name?”

“I'm Clara-Belle, but my friends call me CB.”

“Well it's nice to meet you CB. This is Paul and Lily.”

“My name's Ruby.” Ruby finally stepped forward. “Pleased to meet you.” She shook their hands and patted the top of my head. “I have a cousin named Lily.”

“You don't say?” Lily asked, suppressing a grin. “What bring you to The Hub?” 

“My partner and I are looking for a computer expert to help us with breaking the encryption on some hard drives, but no one has been good enough for the task yet.”

“Well aren't YOU in luck?” Lily asked. “Paul here happens to be THE BEST computer guy in the wasteland.”

“Oh really?” Ruby asked, looking at him curiously. Paul blushed a little but nodded. “What makes you so sure of that title?”

“You know when you boot up a computer and the boot up screen shows you the sword come spinning out, then the shield blocks it and then the sword slides in front of the shield and it makes the logo before it switches to the log in screen?”

“Yeah...” Ruby said, unsure where he was going with it.

Paul reached up and unzipped his jumpsuit, sliding his arm out and showing her a tattoo on his arm of the sword he had just described.

“So you have a tattoo of part of the logo, that doesn't mean much.”

“I don't have a tattoo of the logo, the logo is MY tattoo. I wrote the OS for most of the computers in the wasteland with my brother. He has the shield tattoo.”

“Oh really? You wrote the operating system for the 200 year old computers?” Brutus's voice came up and I realized he'd walked up at some point. I had been so lost in CB's scratching my ears and chin I hadn't even noticed him come over.

“Actually yes.” Paul said defensively. “I was cryogenically frozen for 200 years, woke up to find the world destroyed.”

“You just expect us to believe that?” Brutus asked. CB shied away from the arguing adults, clearly she wasn't quite the little spitfire I knew in my world.

“I don't care what you believe, it's the truth. We're offering to help you with your computer problems, but feel free to go back to your table and leave us to our dinner. It's no skin off my back if you aren't interested.”

“Fuck it.” Brutus snapped, turning and marching away from the table. “You two coming?” He called. Ruby rolled her eyes at his back but didn't give us a much better look either.

“Come on CB, it's time we eat.”

“Alright Ruby. Bye Sugar Cane.” CB said, kissing my horn, which almost made me ache to be back home with my CB.

“Bye CB.” I leaned up and kissed her cheek and she laughed and hurried after Ruby.

“The fuck is that guy's problem?” Paul grumbled.

“Brutus is a hot head.” Lily said softly.

“Our Brutus probably would have reacted the same way if he hadn't been the one to wake me in the first place.”

“Even still, he needs help, I offer it to him and he storms off like an angry child.”

“You guys ready to order?” The waiter asked, coming up beside us.

“Yeah.” Lily forced a smile and looked up at him, ordering my food then looking at Paul, who finally ordered a Brahmin steak and the waiter was off again.

Paul seemed very annoyed for the next while and we sat in silence while we ate, not something I'd normally do, but we weren't identical and I knew I'd be annoyed if someone questioned my credentials like that.

“Hey...” Brutus came over to the table, holding a computer tablet in his hands and I already knew what was coming. “Doctor Cane? I...I'm sorry about the way I reacted earlier. Ruby found you in this old Enclave database.” He held out the tablet and it showed Paul's personnel record from during the war, complete with his picture and the M.I.A. status that mine had been marked with when my Ruby had shown it to me. “So if you would still consider coming to work with us on this I'd be beyond appreciative.”

Paul looked up from his drink, his face saying he was going to be sarcastic or rude, but he caught sight of Lily's serious look and his features softened. “Sure, I'd be happy to.” He said.

“Perfect.” Brutus said, sighing in relief. “Ruby would have killed me if you had refused. I've already paid for your meal and booked you a room at the motel, we're going to head back to the base tomorrow morning if you're okay with that.”

“Absolutely. We were just sort of drifting from town to town anyway.” Lily said, smiling brightly.

“Great.” Brutus grinned, looking at them. “SO I have to ask...what's up with the unicorn? I mean...is he a robot or something?”

“No no, he's real.” Lily said, stroking my mane. “We rescued him from an abandoned Enclave research facility in New Mexico. A place called Stallion's Gate. They were trying to make a pack animal with a coat that would better blend into background for night time travel. Obviously bright blue and yellow weren't what they were going for. The horn is just a manipulation of his skull to give him some self defence.” She said, grabbing my horn and shaking it a little, I was still worried it might snap, but it held firm and tugged my head around.

He flipped through the information on the tablet in his hands for a moment. “Stallion's Gate...The only Enclave facility listed there is a Temporal mechanics facility, abandoned since the war.”

“Yeah, 200 years later and the Enclave is just going to ignore a base sitting full of equipment.” Ruby laughed, coming up beside him and taking the tablet from Brutus. “I did re-purposing work on old bases, turned meteorological facilities into weapons R&D, horticulture into Power Armour producers, if the lights turned on and the toilets worked it was crying out to be re-purposed.”

“Oh, you worked for the Enclave?” Lily asked neutrally.

“Yeah, but don't hold it against me, I was more of a conscript than anything else.”

“Fair enough.” Lily shrugged.

“Hey, could I take Sugar out for a walk?” CB asked hopefully, coming to stand next to me.

“I don't think so.” Brutus said. “You just want to sneak out to the Yao Guai caves with those kids.”

“Nu-uh!”

“I think Sugar needs to get some sleep tonight, probably more than we do.” Paul said. “We've had a long day today and we'll probably have a longer day tomorrow.”

“Aww, alright.” CB nodded dejectedly.

“Don't worry about it squirt, we're going to be travelling together all day tomorrow, and while Paul works I'll be around all the time.” I said to her.

“Yeah I guess.” She said. “Alright, I'll see you in the morning Sugar.”

“And you're not going to try to sneak out to the Yao Guai caves right?” I asked, I was feeling protective, sue me.

“No I won't, I promise.”

“Good, because I don't want to carry back a baggy of blood and guts.”

She just nodded again and moved back, taking Ruby's hand. “Good night.” Ruby said and the two of them started out of the restaurant.

“That's some really impressive voice throwing you can do.” Brutus said to Paul.

“Yeah we've been practising.” I replied. “Might retire from Wasteland wandering and take up performing instead.”

“Might not be a bad idea.” Brutus laughed, patting my head. “Good night.” He headed out after the girls and we were alone again.

“Yeah Paul, you do an amazing job throwing your voice.” Lily grinned.

“Oh shut up.” He rolled his eyes and got out of the the booth. “Lets turn in shall we?” He asked.

“Might touchy isn't he?” She asked me.

“He's just awkward about it, I've been there.” I shrugged.

We got the key to our room and after promising to allow the manager to inspect our room before we left to make sure 'that weird horse thing' didn't shit all over the place, we got inside, only to discover a single queen sized bed, a couch and a small bathroom.

“What is that thing?” Lily asked, pointing at some weird chair in the corner of the bathroom.

“What thing?” Paul looked into the room. “Uhh, that's a toilet.

“A what?”

“Are you kidding? You have indoor plumbing but not toilets?”

“Uhh, no?”

“It's for peeing and pooping in.” He said, blushing a little.

“Really?” Lily asked, looking back at him. “Why would you ever need to do that? What's wrong with a bush?”

“What? Gross.”

“What's gross? It fertilizes the ground, it gives plants essential nutrients. Why would you waste that by dumping it down some porcelain hole?”

“I really don't want to have this conversation.” Paul sighed, flopping down on the couch.

“Whatever.” Lily shrugged, coming out of the bathroom. With a flash of green light she transformed back into her normal form. “Ahh, that's MUCH better. It leaves me so achy maintaining that form for so long.” She got up on the bed and stretched out, sighing.

“Hey shove over.” I said, crawling up beside her and settling into the comfortable sheets, pulling Ebony and Ivory from their holsters and setting them on the bedside table, my saddlebags joining them.

“This is MY bed.” She said indignantly. “I'm a lady, I need a proper bed.”

“Are you kidding? This thing is huge, there's room enough for all three of us in here.”

“I'm good to sleep on the couch.” Paul laughed. “I can't believe I'm sitting on a couch, looking at a unicorn and a...Changeling...?” Lily nodded. “Changeling stretched out on a bed. I would have assumed I was crazy. I suppose I still might be, though the other people have interacted with you in at least some way.”

“Don't worry, you're not crazy,” I said, “and even if you are, just enjoy it, it's not like monsters are trying to eat your skin or anything.”

“You're a strange buck.” Lily sighed.

“Paul was thinking the same thing.”

“I was.” He admitted. “So are you sure about this job?”

“Absolutely. The hard drives they have were taken from the cryo facility you were in. If the power hadn't failed Brutus would have been the one to wake you up.”

“What's so special about the hard drives? Data that's 200 years old hardly seems helpful to anyone.”

“I think the data is booby trapped.” I said, sitting up. “I know that Venture had plants in The Collective that fed him information, but I think the hard drives probably hacked the computer systems and delayed our response time when the Pyros attacked.”

“So why would we want to crack the hard drives?”

“At this point the damage is done. The hard drives have been interfaced with the system for months, all we can hope to do is break into them and get the information out that I couldn't get from my world and hopefully find our way to Venture and Castor before it's too late.”

“It's hard to believe that my brother could have turned out so evil.”

“I'm still having trouble dealing with it and I met with mine face to face. Fought him even...it's not an easy process to go through...”

“But, even if it's as a prisoner, you want him back because he's your only link to the past.”

“Exactly.”

“So do you think my brother was working on a dimensional teleporter too?”

“Well it's not outside of the realm of possibility, but I have found that things around here are different enough that he could be working on lots of things...THAT'S IT!”

Lily, who had been starting to doze off beside me, shot up in the bed when I yelled. “What's what?!” She demanded, horn glowing brightly, ready for a fight.

“I know how I regrew my horn and healed my injuries!”

“Oh? Care to fill us in?” Paul asked. Lily sat up straight, her horn dimming again and looked at me curiously.

“I don't know if it exists in this world, but in our world there are high end security systems that use genetic encoding to encrypt files, or seal a safe, or a case for secure transport. Venture used genetic encryption to secure his computers and to help run the Crusader computer, using his own DNA. It's why he needed CB to run the computer, because she shares some of my DNA, which is so close to his, so the genetic encoding must have run through the mega spell too. We passed through it, it recognized that my DNA was really similar to my brother's and it reset me. Fixed my wounds, fixed my horn, the whole package. So I'm back to my awesome self.” I grinned.

“Well I suppose that makes as much sense as anything.” Lily shrugged.

“When I find Venture, I'll beat the right answers out of him.” I suggested.

“Also a plan.” She laughed.

“I need to relieve myself.” I said, getting up off the bed. “And I'm going outside to do it.” I added, looking from the bathroom to Paul.

“Do whatever you want. You're an animal, they don't care, just don't ruin someone's flowers.”

I smirked and headed outside. It was nice and dark out now so there weren't a lot of people around this area. I went around back and did my business on a nice patch of dirt away from anything and behind some barrels so no one would notice and be sickened or anything, since humans seemed so sensitive to the subject.

“Shh, quiet...” I heard voices echoing through the alley and I looked around, my EFS picking up  at least 12 indicators beside me. I moved out of the alley and saw a group of kids a hundred yards or so ahead of me, going through a gap in the wall and vanishing out of the city. Under other circumstances I would have gone back inside, but CB was the last one out.

“Dammit girl, what did I tell you?” I grumbled, hurrying after them. I had to wait for almost 10 minutes before I was able to use my magic to boost myself over the wall without anyone noticing and by then I could just barely see the group in the distance, heading up the highway and towards the Yao Guai cave.

“I'm going to kill her.” I growled, rushing down the road as fast as I could. The kids reached the cave entrance and vanished inside a few minutes before I caught up. The entrance was very dark so I reached down to turn on my pipbuck flashlight when a number of screams echoed through the cave and I saw the green indicators moving rapidly back and fourth, four red indicators appearing as well. If I understood Paul's explanation, Yao Guai were some kind of mutated bear, so I was surprised I didn't hear them roaring too. I pulled back from the entrance as children raced out, scattering around. Problem was they weren't being chased by mutant bears...they were being chased by other humans, with mean looking guns and some weird tattoo on their foreheads, and worse I didn't see CB in the group.

“Fuck it! Just shoot em!” One yelled and they levelled their guns to open fire.

“HEY!” I yelled and leapt at them, bucking one hard with my back legs, I heard a sickening crunch and felt the body give heavily from the impact, his body flew sideways into another of the attackers and the two tumbled over the edge of the cliff, plummeting into the raven beyond.

“The fuck?!” The one closest to me turned to see what had attacked her friends and as she saw me I dropped into S.A.T.S. too late realizing I had left Ebony and Ivory back in the motel room. So I had to improvise. Targeting the arm holding the assault rifle I dropped out of S.A.T.S and lunged forward, biting her arm hard and wrenching it to the side. She screamed and again I heard bone snap. The gun fell from her hands and I caught it in my magic, bringing it to bear and, remembering Paul's explanation of how human guns worked, fired three rounds into her head.

I still didn't like killing but I had more important things to worry about because CB still hadn't emerged from the cave. I dropped back into S.A.T.S. and emptied the rest of the clip into the last attacker before he could fire on the fleeing children. As he fell I grabbed the carbine from his hands as it left his hands and I took off full speed into the cave.

Luckily the cave wasn't a complex maze or anything. I saw two green marks and three more red ones, and I heard CB struggling and crying.

“Please let me go! I have to get home!”

“Oh don't worry little girl, you're going to your NEW home. Little girls like you bring LOTS of money in our line of work. The only thing better than a virgin slave is a YOUNG virgin slave.” A female voice laughed.

I hurried through the hall as fast as I could without tipping my hoof that I was coming.

“Please stop!” CB sobbed and I put on more speed, stealth be damned.

“Don't worry dear, just one hit and you'll never worry again.”

I rounded the final corner just in time to see CB, held firmly in place by a tall skinny man who was laughing manically as a woman knelt in front of her. CB's armour had been pulled off and she just wore a simple shirt and jeans, probably her normal clothes under her armour. The armour and her weapons lay against the far wall. She had a mask with a canister attached to the back held to CB's face and for a moment I was terrified I had found the human Pyros.

CB had stopped struggling and had basically gone limp. I realized there was a little boy already laying barely conscious just a few feet away.

“STOP!” I screamed, drawing the attention to myself.

“The fuck is THAT?” The man holding CB demanded, looking at me in shock. He dropped her and she just collapsed in a heap on the ground.

“I don't know but it'll sell for a fortune.” The woman said, standing back up and reaching for a gun on her hip.

I fired the carbine and her hand shattered. She fell back howling in pain. “KILL IT! FUCKING KILL IT!”

I dropped the one that had been holding CB before he could begin to reach for his gun, the other that had been standing by the fallen boy managed to draw and fire at me but it went wide and a quick trip into S.A.T.S. put a bullet into each leg, two more into his chest and one last one into his face, leaving me with an empty carbine, leaving just me and the woman.

“There's a special place in hell for monsters like you.” I said, stepping over her, pulling her gun away from her waist, which she had been struggling to free with her good hand. I lifted CB and the boy up with my magic and set them on my back, also grabbing the canister she had used on CB and probably the boy.

“W...What are you?” She whimpered.

“What do I look like?” I asked flatly. I grabbed the woman and lifted her with my magic, pressing her to the ceiling. She screamed in terror and grabbed at a stalactite. I released her from my magic and she gripped tightly to the stone spike, trying to keep from falling. I pulled the proxy mines from CB's bandolier and armed them, setting them on the floor directly below the trapped woman.

“I hope you have a good grip up there.” I said, picking up CB's armour and walking out of the cave as the woman cried for mercy, then for help. As I exited the cave I heard her scream and then the Beep Beep BOOM as the mines exploded, the whole area shaking and a massive dust cloud blowing out the entrance.

“S...Sugar Cane?” I heard CB mutter.

“Don't worry sweetie, we're gonna get you home and get you help.”

She just groaned and grabbed my mane, gripping it tight as I hurried down the path back to the highway.

Once I was back on the highway I raced back to the town as fast as I could, using my magic to keep the barely conscious children balanced on my back.

I came up to the city and went around the side to avoid the guards, and leapt up over the wall with a magical boost, coming down and tearing off to the motel, both children had completely lost consciousness by now.

I crashed through the door to our room, again scaring Lily out of her sleep, but this time doing the same to Paul. “Help help help help!”

“What the fuck?!” Paul yelled, jumping up, his pistols coming up to point at me. “Sugar? What happened?” He asked when she saw the children.

“They snuck out to go the cave, they got attacked by a group of bandits or slavers. Most of the kids got away but these two got cornered and drugged with this.” I threw the canister to Paul.

“Shit, this is Jet.” He said, looking at the canister. “It's a really powerful drug, and this is a dose meant for an adult. We need to find the others and get the kids medical attention.”

We were up and outside again fast. “Lily go find Ruby and Brutus.” Paul said to her when she joined us a moment later, back in human form and straightening her dress. “We'll take the kids to the medical centre.” We started off but Ruby and Brutus were already out and looking for CB.

“GUYS OVER HERE!” I yelled before I thought, hoping they'd just think it was Paul.

“What happened?!” Ruby asked, coming up to us.

“I was taking Sugar out and we saw the kids sneaking out of town through a hole in the wall.” Paul said. “I didn't know what room you were staying in so we followed them. The Yao Guai cave doesn't have Yao Guai in it, it had slavers in it...” We were already inside the medical now and Paul was explaining to the nurse and the other two all at once. “CB and this guy were cornered in the cave, the slavers dosed them with Jet just before we caught up.”

The nurse had gotten the doctor from the back and Ruby helped them move the kids to examination tables.

“What happened to the slavers and the other kids?”

“The other kids got away...” Paul said slowly and I grunted softly. “The slavers are all dead.” I cleared my throat a little and nodded my head at the same time so he'd know he was right.

“They dosed the kids with Jet?” The doctor asked and Paul pulled the empty canister from his pocket and set it down on the bed CB lay on.

“Shit, get em addicted early. At least it's just one dose, strong as it may be. Who's the other child?”

“No clue, he was already unconscious when we got there. His hair cut and the clothes make him look like he might be from the legion, though he looks Native American, which I wouldn't have thought Caesar would take.”

“I wouldn't have thought they'd have let their children this far off the leash.”

“Well after the Hoover Dam incident they haven't had quite the control and influence they used to so it's entirely possible that his family got out with their lives, and I think when he really started ramping up his army for the battle he was taking anyone and everyone willing to fight, regardless of race.”

“We should try to find his parents.” Lily said. “They'll be frantic when he doesn't come home.”

“The detox process for Jet isn't an easy one, this will take all night...and it's not cheap.” The doctor said.

“I have the money.” Paul and Brutus answered at the same time, looking at each other, then back to the doctor. “We have the money.” Paul said again.

“Fair enough.” The doctor said. “Why don't you go try to find this boy's parents and leave us to our work?”

“I'll stay here.” Ruby said, sitting beside the bed. “I can't leave her.”

“So long as you stay out of the way.” Brutus said to her and she just nodded.

“Wait...” CB called weakly as we turned to leave. “Sugar stay?” She asked. I paused and looked at Paul.

“I don't mind, it's not like he can help look anyway...”

“Come here Sugar.” Ruby said, patting her legs and smiling. I couldn't help but feel like I was being talked down to, but at the same time, they thought I was a pet, and I know I'd talked to pets like that in the past. I walked over and sat down between Ruby and the bed. CB gripped my mane again and sat back.

“How do you feel sweetheart?” The doctor asked CB.

“Melty...The roof won't stop moving...” She opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out for a moment. “I cay tatht eerds...” She said, running her tongue against her teeth roughly.

“You can taste words?” The doctor asked and she nodded and he actually smiled a little. “This isn't a bad thing.” He said to Ruby, who looked very worried. “She didn't get a very heavy dose if this is the worst she is, though it worries me that the little boy hasn't woken. He may have gotten a much larger dose...It might be best to just let her ride it out and focus on treating the boy.”

“Are you kidding? I've been high on Jet, it's no picnic.” Ruby snapped. CB was laying on her back, grasping at invisible things in the air and giggling to herself, her other hand still firmly gripped into my mane.

“And yet the process to bring her down will take two hours at least to do so, during which time she'll still be high and still be suffering the effects, it'll also leave her violently ill and unable to keep food down for a day or two, and she'll suffer from migraines for the better part of a week until the drugs used to purge her system are themselves completely purged from her system naturally. OR we leave her to ride out the drugs for a few extra hours, but she's back to her old self by morning with a hangover that she'll sleep off when she crashes and she'll have some crazy stories to tell people.”

“Yeah but...” She was cut off by CB grabbing her sleeve and tugging on it.

“Ruby...Ruby...Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby.” CB chattered, looking at her expectantly.

“What is it sweetie?” Ruby asked, taking CB's hand in hers.

“Sugar can talk.” She said, pointing to me and looking at Ruby seriously.

“I'm sure he can CB.” She chuckled.

“HE CAN!” She yelled, much louder than she needed to.

“CB, that was just Paul, Doctor Cane, throwing his voice so it SOUNDED like Sugar was talking. He's just a pony. He can't talk.”

“Come on Sugar talk!” She said, looking at me expectantly. I just looked at her blankly and she cried out in frustration. “He can use magic too! He saved me with magic!”

“CB you're sick. You just saw Lily and Paul using their plasma or laser guns and you thought you saw magic.”

“Nu-uh! They weren't there! It was just Sugar! He blew up the slaver lady.”

“I know, I'm sure it was amazing to see. He's a magic talking unicorn and he saved you.” She nodded.

“You never believe me.”

“You just told me you could taste words.”

“Tastes like chocolate.” She muttered. Her moment of lucidity passed and soon she was back to muttering to herself and gripping listlessly at my mane. Time dragged on sitting silently in that small room, unable to talk to anyone, unable to do anything besides sit...I shifted a bit to get more comfortable and rested my head on the mattress beside CB, who was trying to count the number of holes in the ceiling tiles, while said tiles were completely smooth, and I tried to get some sleep, which wasn't easy with CB's hand in my mane constantly changing grip, tightening, loosening, tugging a little too hard sometimes.

Eventually I fell asleep beside her, I don't know how long I was asleep but when I woke up, to my mane being tugged on too hard, I opened my eyes to see CB's face almost right against mine. She grinned and went “Boo!” Then she fell back giggling. I saw an old man sitting beside the boy's bed, looking deeply concerned, the boy was still asleep, but he was hooked up to an IV and a couple extra machines. I sat up slowly, Ruby wasn't sitting beside me anymore, now it was a very tired looking Lily.

“Hey.” She smiled, “You're never gonna believe who we found. That young man's name is Xem, that's his grandfather Xeha.”

“You're joking...” I whispered, looking over at the other bed in amazement.

“I couldn't make this shit up.” She laughed, yawning and slumping back in the chair. 

“I knew you could talk.” CB said quietly, still looking up at the ceiling.

“Of course I can talk CB.” Lily said, looking over at the bed.

“Wow you can...SO CAN I!” She gasped, covering her mouth with her free hand. “Hey Mister...can you talk?” CB asked Xeha, looking over at him. “We can all talk over here...”

He looked up at her and shook his head sadly, looking back to Xem.

“Oh, I'm sorry Mister.” CB said, turning back to look at me. “He can't talk Sugar...I feel bad for him, can you help him talk with your magic?”

“CB, you should try to sleep.” Lily said. “You have had a VERY long day, and we're supposed to be going to your home in a few hours.”

“Not tired...” She said simply. “Sugar...you're cute.” She fell back giggling and sighed. “I feel sick.”

“It's just the drugs wearing off.” The doctor said, coming over to check on her. “Are you still seeing things? Or hearing things?”

“Uhh, no not really...The room is just kind of spinning slowly.”

“Does that mean she can leave soon?” Brutus asked, coming up behind the doctor.

“Yes, I should think in the next hour or two, but she probably shouldn't walk too far.”

“Oh that's fine, Sugar can carry her.” Paul offered. “He normally carries heavy equipment and weapons, I'm sure a 10 year old girl is nothing.”

“I'm 12...” CB said defiantly.

“My mistake.” Paul smiled. “What do you say Sugar? Got any problem carrying her?”

“Of course not.” I answered.

“SEE! HE TALKS!” CB yelled, pointing at me and looking at the adults expectantly.

Brutus laughed and came over to the bed side. “CB, it's just Paul talking and making it SOUND like Sugar is talking. It's called ventriloquism.”

CB looked furious that no one believed her and I felt kind of bad, but we had to keep the charade up, we didn't want to cause a panic or draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.

“So CB, why don't you get a little more rest and we'll get our stuff packed up and buy some supplies and we'll head back soon?”

“Can I sit up front?”

“Probably not a good idea, you should sit in the back with Sugar. He'll probably be thrown off being in a moving machine.” Ruby said.

“A moving machine?” Paul asked. “We're not walking?”

“Please, walking is for chumps.” She replied. “Go pack up and meet us back here in two hours.”

So we headed out, back to the motel we got our few things together, the manager inspected the room, glad I was so well behaved, and we were on our way back to the medical centre.

Xem was awake now, talking quietly with his grandfather in another language. The young boy looked exhausted and sickly but it was obvious that his grandfather was relieved to see him awake.

CB was standing beside her bed getting her armour back on with Ruby's help, though her bandoliers were currently sticking out of Brutus's pack. Once her armour was on she walked over to the other bed and smiled a little at Xem. “I'll come see you next time I'm in town okay?” She asked.

“I'd like that CB.” He nodded. “Just not any time soon so I don't get sick all over you...”

“That's fair. I'll see you later Xem.” She said, looking at the other around her, then shrugging and kissing his cheek, moving back to us. He blushed furiously and went back to talking to his grandfather.

“Anything you want to tell us CB?” Brutus asked curiously as we walked outside. I knelt down and CB got up onto my back, sitting carefully and wrapping her arms around my neck. I probably could have done without her in the armour, which dug into my neck some, but it wasn't so bad.

“About?” She asked innocently.

“About that little display of affection.” Brutus said bluntly.

“Oh...no not really.” She shrugged.

“Wanna try that one again?” Ruby asked.

CB sighed and just fell silent.

“Fine, but we're talking about this when we get home.” Ruby said, starting for the back of town.

“Where are we going?” Paul asked, looking around curiously.

“To catch a ride.” Brutus grinned.

We rounded a corner and came face to face with a massive metal machine. It had been painted ruby red  with a big white area on the bottom that looked like a pattern, but I couldn't quite tell what. It looked like a sky wagon, but it had wings with rotor blades on each side, and some mean looking machine guns mounted under the wings, close to the hull of the ship, as well as what looked like empty missile racks and along the sides were unmanned turrets in transparent 

“Wow...” Paul said simply, whistling a little.

“Perks of abandoning the Enclave without telling anyone...it lets you take a parting gift or two. All aboard the Vertibird Ruby Star.” She said proudly, looking in confusion when Lily fell to the ground laughing.

Footnote: Level up

Perk Added: Strong Back: You are able to carry an additional 50 Lbs. of equipment.

> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3:

Honestly, I was glad we weren't walking. Ruby walked around back and popped the hatch.

“Took you long enough!” A gravely voice said from inside the ship. A figure got up and walked forward to the hatch. She was a ghoul-ed human...Crackshot!

“Sorry Grandma, we ran into some last minute planning problems, had to do some strong arguing to secure the computers we needed.” Brutus said, gesturing to a group of crates that were sitting beside the ship. They had been there when we'd arrived.

“How you doing kiddo?” She asked, looking at CB on my back.

“Better.” The little girl replied without looking up at the ghoul.

“That's good. Wow, a pony...I haven't seen any of you since before the war.” She brushed the top of my head. “Never one with these kinds of colours of course.”

“Long story.” Paul said. “I'm Paul.”

“Oh the tech guy from the war. I look forward to having someone else to talk to about those times. Name's Clarice, but my friend's call me Crackshot.”

“Oh well hello Clarice.” Paul said, taking on what I could only describe as the creepiest voice that he could manage.

“Nice to meet you Crackshot.” Lily said, shaking her hand.

“Alright, you guys wanna actually do some work so we can get out of here?” Brutus asked, shoving a box into Paul's hands, then another into Lily's, a third into Crackshot's and finally grabbing the last one himself. Ruby was already in the ship and I could hear systems coming to life, the blades starting to spin up a moment later. They loaded the crates onto the ship and then took their seats. CB grudgingly slid off my back and got into one of the seats that lined the wall, Paul sat in the cockpit with Ruby, the two of them idly chatting about the ship and it's functions. Lily 'guided' me into the seat beside CB and pulled the harness around me to secure me into the seat properly. CB flopped against my side and groaned. The ship was clearly designed for military use, two rows of 3 seats on either side with an aisle going from hatch to cockpit, the rear half used only for storage. Weapon racks lined the walls as well, most were empty but there were two missile launchers on one side, a flame thrower and Gatling gun sat on the opposite side. It was amazing how much the weapons of the two worlds shared in terms of design.

“Please don't throw up on the pony.” Brutus said, stroking CB's hair and looking at her seriously. She just nodded gently and closed her eyes.

“Alright people, we're heading up.” Ruby called as the hatch closed behind us and the Vertibird rose into the sky. The trip wouldn't be a long one, we were only 45 minutes out from the Collective base, of course 45 minutes in a Vertibird is hours and hours on hoof, so I was glad for the machine. Ruby and Paul were lost in conversation almost the whole time, same with Lily and Brutus. CB just slept against me and Crackshot looked out the window quietly.

“Hey guys, I think we have a problem.” Crackshot said about 30 minutes into the flight. “We got two Vertibirds come up on our six and they're moving to a flanking attack formation!”

“Unidentified Vertibird.” The speakers crackled. “You are in possession of Enclave property, surrender quietly and you will only be sent to prison, resist and we WILL shoot you down.”

“Eat me Eric.” Ruby called over the Comm.

“Ruby? Is that you?” The voice replied. “I thought you were dead.”

“You and the rest of the team left me for dead in a cave, I'm sure you did.” She snapped. “HOLD ON EVERYONE!” She yelled to us. The Vertibird lurched sideways hard as she spun the massive vehicle, opening fire on the approaching ships. One was caught off guard and exploded from the barrage of missiles Ruby loosed on them, the other one though pulled hard to the side and avoided the barrage by inches.

“RUBY STOP!” The voice, Eric, called over the comm.

“STOP?! STOP!? You have the balls to tell ME to stop?!” She had an almost hysterical rage in her voice. “SURE I'LL STOP! JUST LIKE YOU STOPPED!” She fired again, the other Vertibird dropped below the barrage and fired back at us, Ruby managed to dodge most of it but a missile clipped one of our rotors and the engine started whining loudly and we pulled sharply to the side as the ship lost it's balance. Everyone was holding tight to their harness and probably praying silently. CB clung to my side desperately, amazingly putting on a front of trying to keep me calm, though I could see in her eyes she was freaking out hard, she had amazing focus.

“Ruby set down now or you'll crash!” Eric barked at her.

“NO!” I could see the tears running down her face. “I NEVER HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU AGAIN!” She fired again but she missed completely. Another salvo from the other Vertibird and our wing was blown right off, the ship spinning wildly out of control.

“Shit shit shit shit.” Ruby was smashing at the controls but it was mostly just sparks and whining. 

“So much for keeping our cover.” I heard Lily say and I looked up to see her looking at me. I nodded and the two of us threw a magic barrier around the Vertibird, setting it down gently before it could crash.

“The fuck?” Brutus was looking from Lily to me and back, both of us bathing the interior of the ship in magic light.

“Pop the hatch!” Lily yelled, pulling herself out of her chair. She grabbed a rocket launcher off the wall and slid out of the ship, rising into the air above the hatch as her wings reappeared on her back. I was right behind her, deflecting a pair of missiles from the other ship, grabbing them in my magic, sending one smashing into a boulder a few hundred meters away, the other I tried to send back at the Vertibird but it missed and kept going. Lily aimed her rocket launcher and fired, wrapping the projectile in a magic field so that when it struck the Vertibird, and it did strike the Vertibird, it pierced through the ship, then she dropped her magic field and the rocket exploded inside the other ship, blowing it outwards in every direction. I threw up a barrier again and shrapnel from the ship bounced harmlessly away from us and soon silence fell in the area again.

“YES!” Lily laughed, landing on the ground beside me, her wings vanishing again in a flash.

“Pound it!” I grinned, holding a hoof out and she bumped her fist to my hoof. “That was beautiful. I never thought to use a magic barrier to control when a missile detonates.”

“Hey in my line of work you learn some interesting tricks.” She said, floating the rocket launcher back into place on the wall and turning back to the interior of the ship, her hands and eyes still glowing bright green. The blue of my magic was just fading from my horn as I did the same.

The interior of the ship was silent, Brutus, CB, Ruby and Crackshot all sat staring at us in shock, Paul looked relieved but embarrassed.

“Uhh...” I stammered. “Surprise?”.

It was quiet again for a long moment.

“I TOLD YOU ASSHOLES HE COULD TALK!” CB screamed at the other adults, holding her hands up and waiving her middle fingers at the group for some reason.

Ruby looked over at Paul quietly. “Uhh, we can explain everything?” He said, shrugging and smiling stupidly.

//////////

So Brutus and Lily set out to walk the distance to the base to bring back a recovery crew to haul the Ruby Star back to the base for repairs. We had talked for a few moments, agreeing to tell them everything, though not mentioning our physical relationships so as to minimize ruining those that might still develop. Shame they had to walk though since Lily and I could have carried the Vertibird back no problem instead of waiting, but we wanted to minimize the damage in that regard too.

“So then the portal destabilized and Venture was pulled through it.” I said, finishing the almost hour long story that brought them up to speed. “When the portal vanished there was Paul in the pit. We hid him away in one of the medical rooms. Once he was revived we put the pieces together about our lives and the two of us set to work fixing the machine to get him home. Lily and I came through the portal to look for Venture since, if Paul survived one way, we assumed Ven survived going back the other way and I feel responsible for him. Since Lily could change into a human form too and retain all her magical power we figured it was best to have her come along too.”

“Wow...” Ruby muttered, looking from me to Paul. “So you two are technically the same person?” She had settled into a seat beside CB and the younger girl was resting against her, having fallen asleep a few minutes into my story, all the events of the day finally catching up with her and putting her out for the count.

“Technically.” Paul and I both said at the same time.

“Wow, that's impressive.” Crackshot laughed. “Uhh one thing though. I have to tell Jack. I can't keep this from him.”

“Who?” I asked, looking to her curiously.

“Jack, my husband.” She said. “I'm not married in your world?”

“No, my version of Crackshot never mentioned a husband that I remember...” I sat for a long moment. “I think maybe he died in the war? I don't know.” I sighed, pressing a hoof to my forehead, struggling to remember if anypony had ever told me about her husband.

“Well all the same, I have to tell him. I trust him. We've been together for 200 years, we don't have any secrets anymore.”

“Uhh, yeah of course.” I said finally, nodding to her. “I would never ask you to lie for me about something so trivial.”

“That's good, because I was telling him either way.” She smirked.

“Yeah I figured as much.” I laughed.

“So, how strong is your magic?” Ruby asked.

“It's average.” I shrugged. “There's all different kinds of magic, I'm good with some, not so good with others. Most of my magical strength is in object manipulation, that comes from working on computers and small electronics for so long, though since coming to the Wasteland I've gotten pretty good at defensive magic too. Making shields, catching and deflecting larger projectiles, like you saw with the missiles earlier.”

“Yeah that was a hell of a trick.” Paul said. “I knew your magic was good, but that was amazing.”

“Thanks.” I said sheepishly.

“And Lily? She's...A Changeling?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah, she's built like a pony, same sort of form, but she can fly AND use magic, and she's more like a giant bug.”

“Gross.” CB muttered. I hadn't realized she'd woken up, but she hadn't budged from against Ruby either so it wasn't really a surprise. “I bet she looks all freaky.”

“Do you think I look freaky?” I asked.

“Well you're a talking pony.” Ruby laughed.

“No you're cute.” CB said. “Like a cartoon character.”

“Uhh, I'll take that as a compliment?” I shrugged. “She looks like me, just black and green instead of blue and yellow.”

“So you think she's cute like you?” Ruby asked. I could feel myself being set up...

“I cannot comment on Lily's cuteness.” I said, trying to put a flat automated sound to my voice. “She is Ruby's cousin and I am not to have any sort of feelings one way or the other.”

“Oh come on, you're not made of stone, surely you have feelings for other ponies.” Crackshot said.

“I do.” I nodded. I floated out the picture of Rosa from my office, the one of me proposing. “This was my fiancee Rosalea. I lost her when I was frozen.” I looked up and saw the same pain pass across Paul's face that I felt in my chest. “I love her now and forever.” I still meant it, even if I was with Ruby now, I'd always have a place in my heart for Rosa.

“Aww that's so sweet.” Ruby said, taking the picture and looking at it curiously. “It's amazing to see the technological parallels between our worlds, but at the same time the amazing differences.” She studied the picture for a few moments before handing it back to me. I took it and tucked it away in my saddlebags again. “I'm sorry I didn't mean to tease you.”

“That's fine, you were faster to apologize for it than my Ruby was, and she insulted me WAY worse.”

“Why what did you Ruby do?”

“Teased me because I used Rosa's voice as a template for my computer systems.”

“Oh, well I'd have done the same in a heartbeat.” She smirked.

“Yeah I know you would have.”

“So wait...you're a REAL unicorn...holy shit.” CB said, as if realizing it for the first time. “That means you really did save me from the slavers!”

“Yes I did.”

“So what happened to that woman that drugged me?”

“She was dealt with...”

“You...you blew her up!” CB said slowly, watching me intently as she struggled to remember. “You stuck her to the ceiling with your magic and put mines on the ground under her, and when she couldn't hold on anymore she fell and blew up.”

“Dude...that's cold.” Ruby said.

“Well I'm very defensive of my...”I trailed off for a moment. “Of my CB...so I guess it just extends to all the CB's I meet.” I shrugged, laughing nervously.

Ruby studied me intently for a moment but just sat back. “Alright fine.”

“Hey guys, incoming rescue party.” Crackshot said, looking up from the window she'd been watching from.

“Alright...and we can't tell anyone else?” CB asked and I nodded. 

“If scientists or doctors found out they'd want to study me and Lily and it would probably kill us in the process.”

“Okay, I don't want you to get hurt.” CB said, hugging me close. I shifted to sit beside her and Ruby just as Brutus and Lily returned, walking with a group of engineers who had brought a massive crane to carry the ship back.

“We were just lucky we weren't very far in the air when they attacked.” Brutus was explaining. 

“The ship did survive amazingly well. You guys are luck...the fuck is that?” The engineer asked, trailing off when he saw me.

“That's my pack pony.” Paul said. “Yes I'm aware they are extinct, he's an enclave experiment. I have all the files if you're curious to read up on it later.” He added, cutting off any follow up questions.

“Yeah, okay...” The guy nodded, turning back to Brutus. “We'll get her loaded up and drive back as soon as possible.” He said, moving out of the Vertibird.

“Alright people...and ponies...” Brutus said.

“And Changelings.” Lily added coolly and Brutus blushed brightly, which was a bizarre contrast on his pale skin.

“And Changelings...we're walking back to base from here so we need to head out if we wanna get back by nightfall.”

CB groaned and pushed herself to her feet.

“Come on my tired little foal, I'll carry you.” I said. “But don't expect it to be an all the time thing.”

“What's a foal?” CB asked, though she crawled onto my back and wrapped her arms around me happily.

“It's a baby pony.” Ruby answered.

“I'm not a baby.” CB said indignantly, but she didn't make any moves to get off of me either.

“Of course you're not.” Ruby laughed. “It's just like me calling you a kid.”

“Don't much care for that one either.” She replied as we started out of the Vertibird.

“Well aren't you just snapping out the grown up sentences all the sudden.” Crackshot laughed.

“Bite me you zombified pile of scabs.”

“Woah! Harsh.” Paul said.

“Oh that's fine she's gonna wake up one of these days, in the middle of the night, and I'm gonna be standing over her bed with my mouth hanging open and my eye dangling out of it's socket. You always love it when I do that don't you Clara?”

“Don't you dare. I have weapons now, I might shoot you by accident.” She said, shivering a little.

“Pft, I'll move all your weapons first. Most I gotta worry about is your cries of terror.”

“Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty stop squabbling.” Brutus said, looking back at them. “Alright...Grandma you look pretty terrible, I'm not gonna lie.” He smirked.

“Don't you sass me boy or you'll have your grand father to deal with!”

“The last time granddad 'dealt' with me, I was 10. Every time you tell him to 'deal' with me nowadays we go to the bar, have a drink and make fun of you.”

“You do not!” Crackshot said, genuinely questioning him.

“Maybe we do, maybe we don't.”

“Ooo that man...every generation he goes soft when they get old enough to drink. He just misses his war buddies. I'm gonna give him such a whupping...”

“Hey Lily, do you remember Crackshot ever mentioning her husband?” I asked, looking at the Changeling walking beside Brutus, figuring it was safe to talk again now that we were away from the engineers. 

“Uhh, I know he's been mentioned in passing at some point. I think he was an Applejack Ranger?”

“A what?” Brutus asked.

“Equestrian version of the Brotherhood of Steel.” Paul said. I looked at him curiously.

“Your Ruby and I were comparing your history with ours before.”

“Oh.” I nodded.

“So who was Applejack?” CB asked.

“Used to be a cereal back in the day.” Crackshot said.

“Yeah that's right, they named their elite fighting force after a children's cereal.” Brutus laughed, getting smacked in the back of the head by the ghoul. I laughed a little, something really were the same in all universes.

“Let me tell you about the Ministry Mares...” I said, the group reorganizing to stand around me so they could all hear it. Even Lily seemed interested in what I had to say. “Well I suppose I should start all the way at the beginning...hopefully it'll save questions down the road.”

“Just tell the story!” CB said in annoyance.

“Alright alright, calm down.” I said, clearing my throat. “I have to go back a ways actually. 1200 years ago, give or take a few years...”

“COME ON!” CB snapped.

“OKAY!” I laughed. “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies...”

Footnote: Level up

Perk added: Mighty Telekinesis  – You triple the mass that you can levitate with your unicorn magic. As an added bonus you have learned to redirect projectiles, even right back at their original target if you're fast enough.
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4:

“And, cliche as it sounds, they lived happily ever after.” I finished as we approached the gates of the base.

“But what happened to Cadence and Shining Armour after that?!” CB demanded. Everyone had been interested in hearing the history of the Ministry Mares and how they were kind of thrust into the positions they ended up in when the war broke out, but CB had been absolutely ENTHRALLED with the stories of their earlier days living in Ponyville and just dealing with small normal problems, like dresses and going to the Grand Galloping Gala.

Ruby laughed and ran her hand through CB's hair. “Why don't you let Cane take a break from talking for now? Maybe he can tell you more later.”

“He better.” CB said firmly, poking my cheek with a finger. “You got me mister pony?”

“Yes ma'am.” I smirked, puffing my cheek out against her finger and she was content to go back to resting on my back. The base had massive concrete walls that rose up 30 feet in the air and the 'gate' was a massive red metal door that slowly swung open as we approached. It was almost 6 feet of steel.

“Wow, that's a big door.” I said softly as we passed through it into the courtyard beyond.

“Well well, what took you so long?” A deep gravely voice asked. I saw Crackshot's demeanor immediately change and she seemed to start walking straighter and with something of a spring in her step as she turned to face the ghoul that had walked up to us. He was just as ghoulish and gross as she was, no hair, one eye was milky white, the other at least looked normal. His body was surprisingly well toned considering he was a rotting pile of death. He wore a black leather coat that reached all the way down his body to the ground and a dark blue ceramic armour underneath that I could just see around the collar of the coat, all but the top button of the coat was done up so it was hard to tell. He spoke with an odd accent, almost like a rougher version of someone from Lundyon...Maybe Glascow?

“We were looking for somewhere to bury your sorry ass.” Crackshot said, putting a finger to his chest. “What's this I hear about you not disciplining our charges once they're old enough to drink?” She demanded.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, glaring at Brutus for a moment. “Clarice, think about this...The kids grow up, spanking them won't do anything, trying to scare them with our looks doesn't work, but you know what works? Getting them blitzed and leaving them to suffer through your chore work the next day while they're hung over, and at a point they are adults and there's no point disciplining them at all.”

“You're not out of the dog house yet Mister, we're gonna have a long talk about this tonight and you better pray you don't end up sleeping on the couch.”

“Ow'er bed is a pull out couch, what difference does that make to ow'er normal living arrangements?” This got him smacked upside the head.

“Don't you sass me you rotting pile of meat.” She said seriously. “You know what I mean.”

He smirked and nodded. “Yes Ma'am, sorry ma'am, it won't happen again ma'am.”

The gate started to close behind us but a horn sounded in the distance and a missile came spiraling out from behind a dune, exploding against the massive metal gate.

“LEGION ATTACKERS!” One of the guards along the top of the wall cried.

“Fuck, and we were having such a good time.” The ghoul sighed, reaching up and starting to undo the belt that held his trench coat closed, now I could properly see the armour he wore underneath, but also the six holstered pistols he sported, two revolvers at his hips, two plasma pistols in front of his stomach and two 10mm's against his chest.

“Jack be careful.” Crackshot said, stepping forward and kissing him.

“Who'er you talking to Lassie?” He smirked. “It's been almost 50 years since I've even been hit.”

“I'm coming with you.” Brutus said, pulling the rifle from his back.

“Hell no you'er not.” Jack snapped. “If yea aren't packing dual pistols you'er not coming.”

“Guess that's my cue to step in.” Paul said, pulling Ebony and Ivory from their holsters.

“Those are some bonny good looking pistols boy-o but I don' know that you should be coming all the same.”

“I'll be fine.” Paul smirked. “I've gone this long by myself, one more encounter with legion soldiers isn't going to make a big difference.” He said, hurrying back towards the massive red metal gate.

“E'ye like him.” Jack smirked. “Ruby, you'er single, you should get with him.”

“Go kill things Jack.” Ruby said, gesturing to the gate.

The ghoul laughed and rushed out after Paul. We followed him as far as the gate but Crackshot stopped us from going out after him as he ran the rest of the way towards Paul. “Just watch.” She said, watching him with the purest look of pride I'd ever seen.

“EH CAESAR BITCHES!” Jack roared, his voice echoing back to us. He slid to a stop beside Paul and smirked at him, saying something to him I couldn't hear. “YEA KNOW WHO I AM?!”

His only response was a legionnaire who stood up from behind a dune and fired a missile at them in response. Faster almost than I could see, he pulled a plasma pistol from it's holster and fired, the missile erupted in midair a dozen or so yards from them. More shockingly I saw the man with the launcher drop to his knees, a bullet hole between his eyes as he fell down the dune, rolling to a stop on the ground. I looked back at Paul and Jack in amazement. Jack had pulled one of his 10mm pistols and I hadn't even noticed.

“NOW DO YEA' KNOW WHO E'YE AM?” Jack roared. He was a terrifying presence. Even Paul was shaken by the authority in the ghoul's voice and mannerisms. 

“You're Jack MacManus.” A voice called from behind the cover of a blown out wall a hundred or so yards away.

“On the nose laddie!” Jack cackled. “So yea' know what's goin'-ta-happen to yea if yea press this attack don'cha?”

“We cannot stand down!” The man yelled back.

“I'm no' askin' yea ta stand down! I'm giving yea the chance ta run fer you'er life!”

“NO! ALL HAIL CAESAR!” Someone yelled and two young men came around the wall; one with a carbine of some kind, the other hefting a spear off his back, bringing it up to throw at them. This time it was Paul's turn. He stepped forward, Ebony and Ivory raised, he moved so fast it was inhuman. The pistols came up, red and green light exploded from the barrels. The man with the carbine kept running for a moment, despite the plasma bolt melting the top of his skull into green goo. He pitched forward and slid along the ground. The gun flying out of his hands and bouncing along the asphalt, spinning to a stop front of Paul. The other man burst with red energy as the bullet struck his chest. He exploded in a pile of ash and tattered clothing. His spears clattering to the ground, as all the organic matter of the body was destroyed.

There was a sound of scrambling as half a dozen more soldiers scattered from around them, rushing off in different directions. “Tha's right! Go crawlin' back to you'er Mighty Caesar!” Jack yelled after them. “TELL 'IM E'YE LIKE HIS SALADS! AND DON' COME BACK SO LONG AS E'YE DRAW BREATH!”

“That man knows how to make me squishy in all the right places.” Crackshot muttered.

“Grandma seriously?” Brutus groaned. “I do not need to hear that.”

“I could stand to hear a little more.” I said softly and Crackshot laughed. 

“That's what I like to hear!” she said, ruffling my mane.

“Don' worry ladies, hold you'er applause and panty hurling for later,” Jack said as he and Paul returned to the gate. “Lad where did you learn ta shoot like that?”

“Truthfully? I can't shoot worth crap.” He held up his Pip-Boy. “I used the V.A.T.S. Targeting assistant to make those shots.”

“Fair enough. I owe you a beer my friend, there are guards who work here that wouldn't run out to stand against a group of legion jackboots.”

“Sure, I haven't had a beer in a while,” Paul answered while he nodded. Tucking Ebony and Ivory away in their holsters again.

“Jack we need to talk too,” Crackshot said.

“Aww come on Clare, I just saved us from the legion menace, can't you be mad at me later?” He sighed.

“Not what I'm talking about smart ass. Besides I stopped being impressed by your showmanship and gun skills while we were still human, how much of a shit do you think I give now?”

He laughed and hugged her, wrapping his arm around her waist and walking back towards the base as the massive door finally started to swing shut.

“And really? As long as you draw breath? You haven't drawn a breath in 200 years.”

“Well they don' know that.” He shrugged.

“You know your Scottish accent seems to come and go,” Paul said, and this got laughs from the rest of the group.

“Yeah Jack, why is that?” Ruby asked knowingly.

Jack rolled his eyes and looked at Paul. “Eye've had almost 250 years in America laddie.” He said, his accent again really thick. “I have learned to speak almost totally without it.” His voice changed back to it's much more neutral tone. “When people come to fight me, they expect me to be this raging Scot. Like I'm going to come out in a kilt with bagpipes at my side, and that my opening attack will be to hurl a Caber at them. So I really lay the accent on thick when trouble comes along, it's all for show my boy.” He laughed, hitting Paul's shoulder playfully. “Also when I get REALLY drunk.” He added. “Which might not be a bad idea tonight.” 

“Oh you'll probably need a drink or two when you hear what I have to tell you.” Crackshot laughed.

“Lily...Hey Lily,” CB said, finally getting off my back and walking under her own power again.

“What's up squirt?” Lily asked, looking down at the little girl.

“I wanna see what you really look like.” She said softly so none of the guards or techs we passed could hear her. “Cane said you look like a big gross bug!”

“Oh he did, did he?” Lily asked glaring at me.

“He did not.” Ruby said quickly since I couldn't inject myself into the argument. “He said he couldn't comment on your looks because you're his Ruby's cousin and that was off limits.”

“You're not helping,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

“Wasn't trying to,” Ruby said and then cackled.

“Lets go to our quarters for this meeting shall we?” Crackshot asked as we made out way inside the building.

“Good idea.” Brutus said.

They lead us through the base. It was amazing how different the architecture was compared to Equestria, but Vertibirds and something called 'air planes' took up a lot more space than a sky wagon and pegasus squad.

“Why ow'er place?” Jack asked, stepping aside to let everyone else in after he opened the door. It looked just like I expected, a couple couches, coffee table, lamps in the corners, it looked like a real home. Different from back home though was a wall, covered in photos. It started with human Crackshot and Jack, their wedding from the look of it. Jack some how managed to look even more imposing as a human, dressed in a soldier's uniform, Crackshot in a beautiful white dress. Pictures of them and I assumed their family, first all adults, then the two of them in a hospital with a baby, a daughter from the look of the pink blanket around her, then picture after picture of them as the baby grew, a child, a teen, a...woman? Yeah woman, then with her family, a nice looking young man joining them in the later pictures, then a picture of Jack and his daughter, both in military garb, Crackshot too, but she sat and was holding another baby, the daughter's husband stood beside them too, though he didn't seem to be a soldier judging by the suit he wore. The next picture was much more solemn, Crackshot, Jack, baby, now bigger, and the husband, but no daughter anymore. They still smiled but it was...sad, hollow almost, their eyes didn't smile when their mouths did. The next pictures obviously jumped a while into the future, because they were ghoulified now, standing together with another young woman who looked shockingly like their daughter. Their grand daughter obviously. She was dressed in a soldier's uniform and sported a rifle on her back, a rifle I recognized as the same one sitting on Brutus's back, though a lot less worn and no duct tape. The pictures took on a repeating theme, which was kind of depressing in and of itself, the next picture was the ghouls, the grand daughter, rifle still on her back, with another young woman, the two of them holding hands and smiling, then in the next the same group, but with a young child, then the child and the other woman, no grand daughter, the rifle now sat on the other woman's back...this repeated over and over, them with a child, then the child's partner, then THEIR child, then one or the other, or even both, would vanish after a picture or two and the pattern would repeat, through each of them the gun continued on, moving from person to person as they dropped off, but not a single one of the people, besides Crackshot and Jack, made it to an old age. It was heartbreaking. The last one in the set showed Brutus standing with them, Ruby and CB sitting on the floor in front of them, it was the only picture where the ghouls seemed to be kind of happy again.

“Hey, you okay?” Lily's voice cut through my depressed study of the pictures and I realized everyone else had moved to a dining room table.

“S...Sorry.” I said softly. “This is a complete account of their lives...it's just really sad. I never thought about the fact that Crackshot had outlived all her children and her children's children...”

“Well they're going to tell Jack now that he's had a few drinks, I thought you might wanna join us.”

“A few...” I looked at the clock on the wall, almost an hour had passed.

“E'ye have lived four lifetimes, there is nothin' that could surprise me anymore.” Jack said, his accent more pronounced. CB was sitting on his lap and everyone else had taken up a seat at the table.

“I bet you're wrong Grandpa Jack,” CB said, “in fact...” She lifted her sack from the floor where she had discarded it and dug through it for a moment. “I betcha ten caps...” She set down the small stack of caps. “...An NCR $20...” She set the bill down and put the caps on top of it. “...And a bottle of whiskey.” She pulled the half full bottle from her sack and set it on the table.

“Where did yea git tha, yea lil' whelp?” He asked, picking up the bottle and inspecting it. Everyone seemed surprised when she set it down.

“It's called scavenging.” She rolled her eyes, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

“Well bless me heart, it's Craig.” Jack said after popping the cap and smelling it. “Sweetie I'll pay you 40 caps for this bottle.”

She glared at him a moment. “200.” She said flatly.

“What are you gonna do with a bottle of Scotch?”

“Molotov Cocktail.” She suggested. “I like anything that explodes.”

“Don't you dare!” Jack said in horror, only too late to realize he'd been hustled by the girl.

“Okay okay, 300, since it means so much to you.” CB smirked.

“E'ye've been scammed.” Jack sighed, but actually pulled a bag of caps from his coat pocket and tossed them on the table before taking a swig from the bottle and sighing deeply.

“What's Craig?” Ruby asked.

“Scotch.” Paul answered without looking up from his data pad. “It's only made and sold in a tiny area on the north tip of Caithness county. It's peaty and sharp, with a long finish of citrus and tobacco notes.”

When no one spoke again he looked up. “What?” He asked, looking at the table. “What am I, a savage? I know what Craig is.”

“We weren't asking you...Ruby was asking Jack.” Brutus said.

“Oh.” Paul grinned sheepishly.

“E'ye like him more and more.” Jack said, laughing a little.

“Alright, 100 caps says you jump.” CB said, gesturing to the bag. “200 says you scream. 300 says you scream like a girl,” she paused and reached into her satchel, pulling out another bag that rattled with caps. “Double says I can make it happen with ONE word.”

“Where did you get all that money?”

“What part of Scavenging don't you understand?” She said, smirking.

“Alright Missy, yea gotta deal.” Jack said, pulling another bag of caps from his coat and tossing it on the table.

CB broke out the most mischievous grin and looked at Lily. “Change.” She said simply.

Lily gasped softly and broke into a big grin herself, she turned around stretching her arms out in front of her and shaking her hips. She wiggled for a moment, rolling her head to crack her neck. “Okay,” she mumbled, clapping her hands together once. Then the room was filled with a bright green light, making everyone cover their eyes for a moment. Then the light seemed to creep back into Lily, wrapping around her. 

She floated into the air, body twisting and stretching on. A long red tail whipped through the air, cracking once, before settling. Then her limbs appeared; all different shapes and sizes. She flexed her fingers, revealing long menacing claws. She started to laugh next, her voice dropping down lower. The next thing to appear were two large mangled wings, different colours and shapes. The room filled with a deafening pop and they appeared, knocking over a table and set of chairs. She rolled through the air, her body curling and writhing with, what looked like, great effort. 

Two horns forced their way from the top of her head, ripping through the skin and fur, leaving trickles of green magic running down her face. Her eyes didn't change until the end, kept open and wide through the whole process, like she was in a great deal of pain. Her eyes flashed green for a moment, before melting away leaving behind yellow and red eyes staring right at Jack. Lily landed softly on the ground, her hoof clicking against the floor. She surveyed the group, her eyes darting from one to the next. 

In the next few moments everything went to hell; Brutus pulled out a rifle, Paul pulled out ebony and ivory, Crackshot pulled out a pistol, Ruby ran to grab CB but tripped over Brutus who also moved to do something. CB was sent flying as Jack leap from his seat, screeched and tossing her across the room. As Jack screamed, I think I shouted, but instead of random noises I managed a single word, a name actually. “Discord!” I managed before tumbling backwards. The form Lily had taken was meant to shock and mystify, which she managed. 

Lily managed to spring forward wrapping her arms around CB, cradling the little girl. The long twisting creature floated into the air, rolling over itself cackling at the reactions of the people around her. “That's. So. COOL!” CB shouted, waving her arms around excitedly. “But you don't look a thing like a bug!”

“That's not her real form,” I said, recovering quickly from the shock, “that's Discord.”

“You mean the dragon thingy from your story?”

“Yeah, he was a Draconicus.” Lily said in the deep, rich voice of Discord.

“Uhh, Lily, maybe you should change back, you're scaring the stiffs.” I said, gesturing to the basically paralyzed humans.

“Oh shit sorry.” Lily flashed with green magic again, and, much more quickly this time, transformed into her normal form, setting CB down with the help of a magic field.

“Now this more what I was picturing.” CB said, looking Lily over curiously.

“Guys...say something.” I said, looking at the rest of the group.

“Uhh...Cool?” Brutus said, forcing a weirded out grin.

“Jack?” Crackshot asked, nudging the other ghoul, who had pressed her to the wall protectively, pulling his guns, which were still pointed at Lily. She pushed him forward and he seemed to snap out of it finally.

“Wait...wait...You kin talk!” Jack said, looking at me in amazement.

“Are you kidding me?” CB demanded. “She turns into a dragon thingy and you say it's weird that he can talk?”

“E'ye...E'ye need a drink.” Jack said, finally holstering his guns.

“Well good thing you have that bottle of Craig.” I said.

“True enough my little pony.” Jack grabbed the bottle and took a long pull off of it, sighing deeply.

“Well I guess these are all mine.” CB said, grabbing up the caps and tossing them into her sack.

“And you'er welcome to 'em lassie.” Jack nodded.

“You want to tell the story this time?” I asked, looking at Ruby and Brutus. “I'm kinda tired of telling it.” 

“Sure.” Ruby said.

“Thanks.” I said, smiling gratefully.

“You, however, should be getting to bed young lady.” Ruby said to CB. “It's late and you've had a rough couple days, AND you have school tomorrow.”

“Aww come on Ruby, I'm not tired!” She whined, still poking curiously at Lily. 

“Don't be that way CB, you have school and I'm not letting you ditch. Think of the awesome story you'll have to tell everyone about the slavers.” Ruby said.

“Hey, how about you show me the way and I'll take you to bed?” Lily asked, stepping back and transforming back into her human form.

CB sighed in annoyance, but she knew it was a losing argument. “Yeah alright...” She nodded, taking Lily's hand. “Come on. Good night Cane.” She said, coming over and kissing my cheek.

“Night CB.” I smiled. She did a quick round with all the adults and then headed out with Lily.

“Alright, where to start?” Ruby asked.

“Well how about you two tell the story as best you can and I'll fill in any bits you absolutely can't remember.”

“Fair enough.” Ruby said, nodding and starting into the story.

//////////

“So then Cane and the others fled in the Vertibird...”

“Sky Wagon.” Brutus corrected.

“Sky Wagon...and made their way to a hospital a few miles away and set up shop there.”
Ruby paused when the door opened and Lily returned, sans CB.

“No problems with her?” Ruby asked.

“No no, not at all, bed time stories are a lot more interesting when you can actually transform into the characters and not just do the voices.” Lily replied, smirking and coming over to sit down on the couch beside me. Everyone had settled into spots in the small living room while Ruby and Brutus had been telling the story. “I just have two questions,” Lily said. “One, how old are you guys?”

“What?”

“Well...CB said she's turning eight years old in a few weeks, but the CB in our reality is almost 13.”

“I'm 22.” Ruby said.

“Our Ruby is 27.” I replied. “I'm turning 30 next month.” I looked at Paul

“I'm 24.” Paul said.

“So there's a five year time difference between realities...” I said thoughtfully. “That's really weird.”

“It also doesn't explain how Paul is already thawed and out and about.” Lily said.

“Also true.” Paul said. “We know the realities aren't identical, maybe time flows differently here too.”

“Possible.” I replied, nodding to myself. “But temporal mechanics are beyond me.”

“Just one more question to answer.” Paul said. I shrugged and made a mental note of it for later.

“What was the other question?” Brutus asked.

“Oh right, I saw that weird insect armour in your room, what is it?” Lily asked.

“Oh,” Ruby said softly, “that's my old Enclave Tesla Power Armour.”

“Do...Do you think I could buy it off you?” Lily asked hopefully. “I don't have a lot, but I just feel this connection to the armour, I think I could do so much with it.”

“Do you know how to use power armour?” Ruby asked.

“In my world I almost LIVE in power armour. I'm sure it's not that hard to transfer those skills to this armour.”

“You know what? You saved not only our lives, but kept my Vertibird in a salvageable condition. Consider it a gift.” Ruby smiled.

“Really?” Lily's eyes lit up, literally, they started to glow green. “Oh thank you so much Ruby.” She said, hugging the other woman tightly.

“Alright alright.” Jack said, finishing off the last of the Craig. “Lets finish this story and call it a night, some of us have guard duty in the morning.”

“Oh right.” Ruby said, returning to the story of my life. Lily decided it would be fun to transform into each pony as the story was told so everyone got to see what they looked like in pony form, though Jack was kind of disappointed that he didn't seem to have a pony counterpart, he let it slide.


///////////


“So Paul, why don't you crash in my quarters.” Brutus said as we made our way through the halls of the base an hour later.

“Yeah, and you and Cane can sleep in mine.” Ruby said to Lily.

“Well that hardly seems fair.” Paul said. “Why does Cane get to sleep with all the ladies?”

“Because I'm soft and warm and cute.” I countered.

“Plus you know he's hung like a horse.” Brutus said and he and Paul and Ruby laughed, leaving Lily and I to look dumbly at each other.

“Sorry, it's a human joke I guess.” Brutus said. “It's an expression that means you have a big penis.”

“Oh. Well I do have that.” I smirked.

“I've heard stories.” Lily nodded. “Mares who couldn't walk straight for days after spending a night with him.”

“She actually fell down the stairs because they were really drunk and it turned out she'd damaged her brain and was never able to walk straight again.” Paul said, roaring with laughter.

“Hey now, don't tease the poor pony.” Ruby said, hugging me defensively. “If I want to sleep with a pony in my bed that's my business.”

“Oh so suddenly you're at my defense.” I said. “You want me to for cuddly warmth and you're my best friend, but if it makes me look bad in front of my friend and I can't argue it you throw me under the wagon.”

“Oh come on Cane, I'm just teasing.” Ruby laughed, tousling my mane.

“Geeze Cane, you're unbelievable.” Lily said. “You always manage to befriend Ruby in the most sexualized way possible, even if she's a different species.”

“Well he IS cute.” Ruby shrugged.

“See? Cute.” I nodded.

“Whatever...” Lily rolled her eyes. “Yeah I'm good with that arrangement. I have plans for that armour of mine.” She smirked. “Probably won't sleep tonight...I don't need to sleep much.” She added.

“Alright, well goodnight then guys.” Brutus said, starting down a side hall with Paul.

“Don't fall asleep first Paul.” Ruby called. “You might wake up with a sore butt!”

Brutus flipped her off without turning around, but Paul's response was simply to wrap an arm around Brutus's waist and continue on silently.

“Alright, well this is us.” Ruby said, opening the door to her quarters, and, big surprise, it was strewn with clothes and random salvage. There were four other doors in the room.

“The constants between universes are AMAZING.” I chuckled. Lily giggled and moved to a set of armour sitting beside an open closet, it really did look very insectoid.

“Oh, pulled it out and everything already?” Ruby laughed.

“Well I was hopeful, and I was admiring it from all angles.” Lily smirked, blushing a little.

“The guest room is in there.” Ruby said, gesturing to a door on the left. “CB's is that one.” She pointed to the one beside it. “Mine.” She gestured to the one across from CB's. “Bathroom.” The last door.

“Perfect.” I said, heading for the guest room.

“Hey hey, I didn't say I was done with you.” Ruby said. “Come on.” I followed her into her room and she patted the bed, which I hoped up onto and lay down on the soft mattress. “Do I need to worry about changing in front of you?” She asked seriously.

“Honestly? I have seen naked humans. I find your anatomy weird and off putting. I'm kinda hoping you'll let me close my eyes so I don't have to see you naked because I might throw up a bit at the sight of it.” I smiled. “No you don't have to worry. I'm a perfect gentle-colt, and I really don't find anything about you to be sexually interesting.”

She just rolled her eyes and pulled off her armour, tossing it in the corner before shedding the shirt and jeans. Without really thinking I scooped the armour up off the floor and set it on the dresser, something I had done time and again for my Ruby, and tugged my armoured barding off and set it down on the dresser beside her armour.

“Oh, human's have cutie marks too?” I asked, looking at her back and seeing a half black sun on her back.

“What? Oh...oh no.” She shook her head, pulling a nightgown on and flopping down on the bed, resting her head on my side, I twisted my head to the side so I could look at her. “So Cane, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Well you already got me in bed.”

“True...” She smiled. “Have you ever thought about...you know...” She sighed and blushed. “Have you ever thought about hooking up with your Ruby?”

“Thought about? Yes...I'm thinking about it right now. I plan on thinking about it later while I pleasure myself.” This wasn't my Ruby so I was probably more comfortable and candid than I should have been, but it was too late, and really she just chuckled.

“Have you two ever hooked up?” She asked, looking up at me.

“What's it to ya?” I asked.

“Well I just...Paul is really nice. He's smart and funny and good looking...”

“Yes I am.” I interrupted, and got a pillow to the face for my trouble.

“I haven't felt that way about a guy in a long time...I just figured if you and Ruby had ever seen if you were compatible then maybe it would work for me and Paul.”

I sighed deeply. “Promise not to tell anyone I told you?”

“Scout's honour.” She nodded.

“I don't know what that means.”

“I promise not to tell anyone anything you tell me.” She said, playing idly with my mane.

I grabbed the saddlebags with my magic and floated them off the dresser back over to me. I dug into one of them and came out with another picture, one that sat in the same protective sleeve as my pictures of Rosa. I set it down for Ruby to look at. 

It was me and my Ruby, on Ruby's birthday, late into the night before we'd headed home from the party, though it was winding down around us. Ruby was snuggled into my neck, half asleep, a wing wrapped around my back. I was resting my head on hers and my eyes were closed. We hadn't even known the picture existed until a few months later when one of the scavenging parties returned from the remains of the base with memory cards and they were found to contain thousands and thousands of pictures, everypony had been grateful for the memories we'd been able to restore with those.

“See that?” I pointed to the band that wrapped around the base of Ruby's wing. “That's an engagement band. We're getting married.” I smiled stupidly. “We're even trying for a foal.”

“A baby? Really?” Ruby asked, taking the picture and studying it.

“Yeah, only in the last few days or so, but yeah.”

“Wow, that's really great.” She said, holding the picture back out to me. I took it and tucked it away again, putting the bag back on the dresser.

“I should get to bed, Paul and I are going to take a stab at the computers tomorrow.” I said.

“Nu-uh.” Ruby said, shifting on the bed and pulling me along with her. “Warm pony stay.” She said through a yawn, snuggling against my back.

“Well if you insist.” I shrugged, yawning myself and drifting off to sleep.

Footnote: 5% to next level. (What? You didn't do SHIT to earn any EXP this time around, don't complain when you don't level if you don't put a little effort into the grind)
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5:

"Hey, hey wake up." CB's voice cut through my dreams of watching the Equestria Games. That filly was very formidable when she wanted attention.

"Lemme 'lone...go bug Ruby...She likes you..." I muttered, rolling over to find...human Ruby, still snuggled into my back, arms wrapped around me, which was when I snapped back to reality, such as it was. Still in this weird human world, a human version of my fiancee asleep beside me, a human version of my daughter...geeze...brain no go good.

"What're you doing in here?" CB asked, sitting down on the bed.

"We were talking, musta fallen asleep, what do you want squirt?" I asked tiredly, rolling over again and pushing myself up to my hooves and hoping off the bed. Ruby grumbled to herself and glared angrily at us without getting up herself, pulling a pillow into her arms instead.

"I have to go to school and I wanted to take you to show off." She said hopefully.

"Isn't the slaver story good enough?" Ruby asked, yawning and flopping down onto the opposite end of the bed.

"How do I explain getting away?" She replied. "Instead, blue and yellow pony." Ruby said.

"Sweetie not today." Ruby said. "Paul and Cane are supposed to start working on the computers today, don't you have a show and tell coming up in a few days or something?"

"Well...yeah..."

"So I'll go then." I offered. "I can't imagine you getting anything but a 100% with something as awesome as me to show off, you wouldn't want to take me NOW and then not be able to use me later and get an easy A."

"I guess." She said, sighing dejectedly.

"It's not that bad." Ruby said, finally rolling over and off the bed, sitting on the floor for a minute before pushing herself up. "Come on, I'll make you breakfast."

"Nah, I'm good." CB said. "Lily was already awake when I got up, she's got your armour all pulled apart, so we made breakfast."

"Oh, she didn't make a mess did she?"

"Well there's pieces all over the room, but it's not more of a mess than it usually is."

"Good, I like my mess the way it is, have fun at school then kiddo."

"I will." She hugged Ruby and kissed my horn before heading back out of the room with a quick "Bye guys!" *Slam* and she was gone.

I sighed and flopped against the side of the bed. "I guess I'm awake." I said, floating my armour off the dresser and pulling it on slowly. "So I gotta ask, where's CB's mom?"

Ruby got quiet for a minute, looking kind of conflicted. "Well, you were honest with me so I'll be honest with you."

"Please do." I nodded, looking up at her curiously.

"CB is my daughter." She said softly, sitting down on the bed again. "Brutus and I...we were young and kind of stupid...he was confused about his sexuality and I wanted to try and help him...His one time with a woman and he ends up with a baby. A woman named Elizabeth said she'd raise her as her own daughter. Elizabeth had lost her husband a few months earlier and they had never had children of their own, and it still let me and Brutus be part of her life. When Elizabeth was killed a year ago when bandits attacked her caravan it was decided that she'd come back to live with me. She still doesn't know we're actually her parents."

"Oh, well that's nice..." I said softly. "At least she still has you two, in my world her parents were actually her parents."

"Are you sure?" Ruby asked, moving to the dresser to get dressed.

"I should think so. You were honest with me and you've only known me for a day. I've known Ruby for a year, we're getting married and we know every weird and wonderful thing about each other, I can't imagine her omitting that little fact for so long."

"True enough." She said, putting on undergarments then pants and a simple T-shirt before she moved to the door.

"No armour?" I asked, moving to follow her.

"Nah, with the Ruby Star out of commission I have other work to worry about for now." She said. "I'll stay on base probably until my baby gets fixed, unless there's an emergency or anything I'm not needed for anything...the fuck?" She trailed off as she walked into the living room, which was actually pretty clean now. Lily sat stretched out on the couch, holding the helmet in her hands, tinkering with a screw driver inside the helmet. Pieces of the armour sat all around the room. The gloves were hooked to a computer, the legs and torso were sitting in the corner, now painted jet black with L.E.D.s along the seams of the armour. The arms sat beside a power outlet, a cable running into the outlet from the arms.

"Hey guys..." She muttered, waving distractedly. She dug at the helmet for a minute. "Oh come on you piece of shit..." She slapped the side of the helmet and the eyes lit up, the same green as Lily's eyes when she powered up. "Perfect!" She smirked, setting the helmet down on her stomach. "Morning." She said, smiling at us now.

"You cleaned?" Ruby asked.

"Uhh, not so much cleaned as I liberated some space." She pointed to a crate that sat in the corner. "All your clothes are in there instead of all over."

"What's with all the upgrades laying around?" I asked, moving to the computer and looking at the code curiously as it flowed along the screen. The keyboard really was a marvel of technology. I couldn't use it with my hooves but my magic would be sufficient to type on it, and soon enough I had about mastered it.

"So I figured an upgrade to the armour was in order." Lily finished, and I realized I had asked a question then totally zoned out. I looked back at her and saw Ruby at the door talking to a young woman.

"Alright, perfect, thank you ma'am." The woman said, the two of them writing something out.

"Who's that?" I asked softly, walking over the Lily, trying to stay out of sight.

"I dunno. I think she's a tech working on the ship, she gave Ruby a time table for the next three weeks, don't know what they're talking about now though."

Ruby closed the door and smiled happily. "22 days to repair the Star," she told us, "I expected way worse."

"Oh that's fantastic." Lily grinned, sitting up and setting the helmet on the coffee table. "Hey look at this." She held her hand out to the helmet, her hand glowing faintly with magical energy. The helmet started to glow in kind and slid open and then down into a simple collar. She slid the collar on around her neck and with another wave of her hand the helmet raised up and closed around her head. "See?" She laughed, her voice the gender neutral robotic voice I had come to associate with Mare-Do-Well.

"That's amazing." Ruby said, studying the helmet curiously as Lily released it and it slid back around her neck.

"I hope to have the whole thing to wear as a set. Collar, boots, gloves and pack. All able to be deployed with just the slightest push from my powers and I'm armoured up and ready to go in seconds."

"That's awesome!" Ruby said, sitting down and looking at the collar around Lily's neck.

"I wanted to do the upgrades to my armour for a long time, but mom was always worried I'd break the armour and we'd be unable to fix it before I was needed for something. So I'm glad I finally got the chance to make retracting armour, hopefully that means I'll be able to do the same with my armour when I get home."

"Well if you have nothing else why don't you pack up your work and bring it to the lab where Cane and Paul are going to be working."

"Yeah I think that'll be good." She said, grabbing up the torso armour from the floor and tucking it under her arm. "Lets hit it."

We headed out of the room, meeting up with Brutus and Paul in the hallway.

"Wow, not limping or anything." Ruby said as they walked up.

"What can I say? He's a gentle lover." Paul answered, wrapping an arm around Brutus's waist and holding him close. Despite himself Brutus managed to keep a straight face.

"He's kidding." Brutus said. "We didn't do any butt stuff."

"Butt stuff?" Lily laughed. "My Brutus doesn't do anything BUT butt stuff."

"Ha ha. But butt." I said, rolling my eyes.

"Excuse me ma'am?" A tech had walked up behind us and Ruby turned to talk to him.

"Come on guys." Brutus said, starting down the hall with us while Ruby stood and talked to the tech for a minute.

He showed us to a server room that again looked much like the one back home at the original Collective base. Four rows of server boxes, a wall lined with terminals and a table near the entrance where the computers Brutus had bought in The Hub were all set up now, much fancier and more powerful than the simple terminal towers.

"Sorry about that." Ruby said, coming in a moment later, writing something in a small book and tucking it away in her pocket.

"That's fine." Brutus said. "I have to get to the council meeting so are you good to handle this?" He asked her.

"Oh yeah yeah, I'll get them set up in here and I'll meet you for the debrief at 10:30."

"Alright sounds good." He said, heading out of the room.

"So I take it you two are pretty familiar with server rooms?" She smirked.

"Yes." We both answered. Lily moved to sit at the table, sitting the torso piece on the table and setting to work on it with a screw driver.

"Perfect, these computers," she gestured to the computers at the table, "have all been loaded up with some fancy decryption and hacking software that Brutus bought..." She was cut off as someone knocked at the door gently. I took on a vacant look and leaned down to sniff idly at the floor. Ruby sighed and moved to the door, muttering something about not even being back for a full day yet.

"Yes?" She asked, opening the door.

"I'm sorry to interrupt ma'am." He said. "I was hoping to schedule a meeting with you and I'm not going to have another chance to ask until after my shift."

"Of course Tim." She nodded, pulling the little book from her pocket. "Seven PM?" She asked after flipping it open and looking at it.

"That would work just fine." He said, smiling and stepping back again. "Thank you ma'am." He started off down the hall.

"See you later." She called, closing the door behind her as she turned back to us. "Sorry." She smiled sheepishly.

"What was that?"

"Don't worry about it." She said, launching back into her explanation of the hacker software they had gotten, sadly for Brutus, it took Paul and I all of ten seconds to suss out that the software was essentially useless, luckily for Brutus both had their own custom cracking programs installed in their respective Pip devices and they started copying the software onto the computers, though Cane's took a little extra work to make work with the human software, similarly as it may look and act the code was still incompatible until they worked a way to patch the systems together, which took them the better part of the hour Ruby spent explaining the systems and what they were hoping to get done.

While they worked over the next hour another dozen people came to talk to Ruby, each asking about making an appointment, and each very polite and formal.

"I do freelance theoretical scenario enactment." She said.

"Like a one woman think tank?" Paul asked. "People tell you what they want to do and you help them plan and or implement it?"

"Exactly." She nodded. Something about that seemed...weird...but who were we to argue.

"Anyway, I have to meet up with Brutus and put together the official debrief of what happened to the Vertibird and submit it to the security director."

"Yeah sure we got this." Paul said.

"I'll keep em in line and make sure they don't get distracted playing games or anything." Lily added, but quickly returned to her own work as she worked to make sure the torso slid open and closed smoothly.

"Alright, I'll see you guys later." She said, heading out. I finally settled into place beside Paul, sitting between him and the doorway so people wouldn't see me as easily if they happened to look in, giving me more time to shut up and look disinterested.


//////////


“I never realized your people were so trained and disciplined.” Paul said to Brutus and Crackshot when they came to check on our progress with the computers.

“What do you mean?” Brutus asked.

“Well earlier when Ruby was giving us the run down of the server set up and where everything was 7 or 8 soldiers came in and asked Ruby if they could schedule an appointment with her, each one stood at attention and addressed her as Ma'am, I knew soldiers in the military that weren't that stuck on ceremony, let alone guards and techs that just work for your organization. What is Ruby's other job? She just said she does freelance work helping people work out scenarios?”

“Oh yeah, she's great at it.” Brutus said, struggling not to smirk. “You should tell her you want to schedule an appointment.”

Crackshot smacked him in the chest. “Don't you dare.” She said to Paul. “Did you see the two of them on the Vertibird?” She asked Brutus. “The two of them sat in the cockpit and talked about stupid shit for the whole trip. I haven't seen Ruby that comfortable and relaxed around a guy in years, at least a guy that isn't you. Paul you should ask her to dinner, don't ask her for anything else.”

“Wait what?” Paul was clearly just as confused as Lily and I. “What does her freelance work entail?”

“None of your concern. You have any scenarios you need worked out?”

“No I'm pretty well versed in how to do the computer work.”

“Well there you go. Ask her to dinner.” Crackshot said again. “Oh speak of the devil.” She dropped her voice to a gravely whisper as Ruby came through the door to the server room.

“Hey guys did I miss anything?” She asked.

“Nah, the encryption on these things is amazing. Castor has clearly done a hell of a job on them, but I'm getting there, a few days, maybe a week and they'll spill the goods.” Paul replied. “Uhh Ruby, if you're free I was wondering if you'd like to get dinner?” He asked, kind of lame in front of everyone, but if I knew Paul, and I did, he didn't even realize just how lame and embarrassing it should have been.

“Oh, uhh I'd love to.” She said, blushing a little. “How about at 11? I know it's kind of late but I have work I have to finish.”

“Sure, it'll give me some more time to work on the hard drives.”

“Sounds good.” She nodded, smiling happily. I wasn't great with human expressions but she looked almost giddy.

“Uhh hey Ruby?” Lily asked.

“Yeah?” The pink haired woman replied, looking over at her.

“I wanna make an appointment with you.” Lily said with a grin.

“You what?” Paul and Ruby asked simultaneously. “Do you even know what I do?” Ruby continued.

“Nope, but I'm curious.” She shrugged.

“Alright, but don't come crying to me when you don't know what to do.” Brutus laughed.

“Yeah...” Ruby looked at Lily intently for a moment. “Sure, why not, wanna go now?”

“Love to.”

With that the two women left, leaving Paul and I just as confused as ever, and Brutus and Crackshot laughing with each other.

"Seriously, what's so funny?" Paul asked.

"Don't worry about it." Crackshot said. "I'm sure she won't PUNISH you for being ignorant, it's not like you know her that well yet."

"Yeah, give it time, I'm sure she'll have you WHIPPED into shape." Brutus said, both of them roaring with laughter and heading out of the room.

"I don't get it..." I said, watching the door close behind them.

"I'm not sure I do either." He sighed, but we quickly returned to our work after both of us set an alarm on our systems to tell us when it was 10:15 so Paul would have a chance to go get cleaned up and ready for his date. When the time came we made our way back to Brutus's quarters, Paul dug through his stuff and went into the bathroom, coming out clean shaven and freshly showered, still dressed in his jump suit. "It's the only clothing I really own." He shrugged.

"Dude seriously?" Brutus laughed, going into his room. He came back out a minute later with denim pants and a black dress shirt and tossed them to him. "Here, these'll work a lot better."

Paul caught them and looked at the clothes. "But you're almost a foot taller than me and a lot broader shouldered." 

"They're not mine, they're an old boyfriend's, he was built like you." Brutus explained. "Don't worry, they're clean." He added.

"Alright thanks." Paul went back into the bathroom and came back out a few minutes later in the clothes, he looked a lot better and more relaxed.

As if on cue there was a knock at the door. Brutus got up off the couch and opened to door. Ruby was supporting Lily heavily; who looked very out of it.

"Holy shit what happened?" I asked, jumping up and moving to help.

"I might have overdone it a little." Ruby said. Lily was actually glitching, her human form was shifting and twitching, her eyes turning green, her skin darkening, and she'd shiver and it would snap back.

"Why don't we go?" Paul said quickly, moving to the door. Ruby stepped back from Lily a bit. "Don't worry, give her 30-40 minutes and she'll recover." Ruby said. She was dressed nicer than she had been before, but surprisingly similar to Paul. She had black denim pants on with some kind of threaded belt. She had an emerald green long sleeve shirt that buttoned up in the front. I wasn't sure if it was fancy attire or not, I was bad enough at pony fashion. It looked like simple relaxed clothing, but she looked very nice in it.

"Alright, well I'll keep an eye on her." I said, moving to sit on the floor beside Lily.

"I'm on guard duty at midnight." Brutus said, taking up his rifle from beside the chair he'd been sitting in. "So I need to head out too." He opened the door and ushered the other two out before I could ask any more questions.

"Lily, talk to me, what happened?" I asked.

"Cane...I...she...she's amazing..." Lily said finally, turning and looking at me with glazed unfocused eyes. "She's like some kind of goddess..." She sighed deeply and melted against the couch, literally, she started to ooze and get runny, her leg stretching to the ground and starting to coil up a little.

"What did she DO?" I asked, starting to freak out a little.

"Oh come on Cane, you gotta know she..."

Footnote: 30% to next level.
> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 6:

"...Is the greatest masseuse I have ever met." Lily sighed, flopping back on the couch and covering her face with an arm.

"Really?" I sighed, shaking my head. "Brutus and Crackshot made it sound like she was some kind of sexual deviant or something."

"What? No!" Lily laughed. "She said something about going through a really tough time and burying herself into books and studying. She picked up on massage because it's so relaxing, so she decided she'd learn it to help make other people feel better, even if she didn't really feel much better herself...I dunno, I was kinda lost in the massage while she was talking." Lily admitted.

"Well if you can pull yourself together I want to go back to the server room and do some more work. You left your armour there too, I don't know if you're finished with it yet or not, but it's just sitting on the table waiting for you."

"Yeah I think I'll be fine in a few minutes." She said, flopping back again and just relaxing. She did finally pull herself up off the couch a few minutes later though. "Alright lets hit it." She started for the door, heading out into the hall. I moved to follow her, taking on my dumb vacant expression that I was getting so good at as we passed a couple techs.

"So what's the plan now?" Lily asked when we got back to the server room. She took a cable hook and used her magic to attach it to the door, putting a coat on the hook so it covered the window so no one could see me working on the computer.

"The plan now is for me to keep working on these hard drives. This encryption is just like the one Ven used, except humanized...I'm sure I'll find a way to work it out." I said, sitting down at the computer and setting to work on it. Lily settled down beside me and continued working on her armour.


///////////


"Holy shit I think I have it." I said, hours later, looking up at Lily.

"AHH!" She yelped when she looked up at me. "Geeze Cane your eyes are all bloodshot." She sighed.

"Oh...sorry..." I rubbed them with my hooves and shook my head a little. "I think I broke the encryption...at least partially. Look at this." I moved to the side so she could slide over and look at the monitor.

"So what am I looking at?" She asked.

"These are global coordinates." I explained, pointing to a string of numbers. "Longitude and Latitude, it points to an exact area on the planet. We have something similar back home, but instead of magical position tracking these are generated by satellites that actually orbit the planet. They actually put things INTO SPACE."

"Wow..." Lily said, only half listening as she returned to her armour, already bored with what I was saying.

"We barely managed to get ONE ship into space, let alone put tech up there. Venture and I had a side project working to put a spy satellite in orbit so we could track our rivals movements, made it look all bad ass, really powerful lasers that could shine on the ground from orbit, focused through a series of gems so they could be made different colours, and used as a focusing point so that they stayed a complete beam instead of spreading out like normal light, but before we got a chance to launch it the war broke out and we had to shelve the project in favour of more war oriented goals."

"Mmhm..." Lily nodded, sliding the armour plating back and fourth on the chest piece to make sure they moved smoothly.

"Then I threw Brutus on the bed and forced myself on him, he cried at first but he started to enjoy it and I'm pretty sure we bonded on a level I never thought possible. He also calls me SIR now."

"That's nice...Wait what?" Lily finally looked up at me and I burst out laughing.

"Nice of you to join the conversation." I said.

"Sorry, I was just lost in my work." She said, gesturing to the armour in front of her.

"I know, I'm just teasing," I said, "but seriously, we might be able to get this resolved in the next few days and we'll be home before the week is out."

"What makes you think so?" She asked. "I mean I heard the stuff you said about coordinates but what makes you so sure."

"Well I plugged the coordinates into this goggle program and it actually showed me a map with the whole area displayed." 

Lily leaned over and looked at the computer again. "That says GOOGLE." She corrected. "What's a Google?"

"I dunno." I shrugged, turning back to the monitor. "So this is the area." I brought the map back up. "This little blue arrow says this is the 'Black Hawk Tribe Native American Reservation' and Ruby was telling me earlier that Xem and Xeha are Native Americans...Venture's base is just off a Zebra village in our world, if these Native Americans are this world's version of Zebras then it stands to reason that this could well be the place."

"Well lets go get the others and get to work planning then." She said, getting up from the table. She took her armour and slid it open with a wave of her hand, the whole thing retracting back into a pack that she carried under her arm.


//////////


As tended to always be the case when I was working, we realized it was six in the morning when we left the lab. Brutus was actually coming down the hall towards us when we left the room, dressed in a guards uniform, rifle on his back. "Hey guys, you're up late." He said, falling into step with us as we headed back the way he'd just come.

"Yeah, I was working on my armour." Lily said, gesturing to the pack she held. "Hopefully it'll be ready to go soon."

"And I might know where Paul's brother is set up." I added. "We were just going to get Paul."

"Oh perfect, it'll give me a chance to change." Brutus said. We got to Brutus's quarters and he vanished into his bed room.

I knocked on the guest room door. "Hey Paul, rise and shine." I called. "We might have found Castor's base, I need you to come look this information over." I heard Paul grumble but no response otherwise.

"HEY! HEY LISTEN!" I yelled, banging on the door harder. "WAKE UP!"

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP!" The door flew open and Ruby roared at me, making me fall back in surprise. She was wrapped in a blanket and I could see Paul on the bed behind her, glaring angrily at the door. "SERIOUSLY, YOU'RE LIKE A FOG HORN!"

"And just what are you doing in there young lady?" Brutus asked, coming out of his room, changed into black denim pants and a blue T-shirt with a cartoon looking human on it.

"I...oh..." She trailed off, blushing brightly when she realized we were all staring at her. "I...I..." She fell silent and slammed the door again quickly, the lock clicking.

"Wow..." Lily said simply, looking from me to Brutus and back to the door.

"Maybe they really are meant to be together." Brutus said softly. "I haven't seen Ruby with a man in years..."

"You see them in bed a lot?" Lily asked, smirking a little.

"No no no." He said quickly. "Just...She has a thing about guys..." He actually looked happy about it though.

"WOULD YOU THREE STOP TALKING OUTSIDE THE DOOR?!" She yelled. "GO DO SOMETHING ELSE! WE'LL MEET YOU IN THE SERVER ROOM!"

Brutus laughed again and moved away from the door. "Come on, lets go round up the others."


//////////


"So that's what I think." I finished, explaining my theory to the others. Jack and Crackshot had joined us, we were still waiting for Paul and Ruby to join us.

"Well it certainly sounds plausible. There aren't a lot of native American places around here." Crackshot said, studying the map on the monitor.

"So what's the plan then?" Jack asked.

"Well we had to practically wage a war against the army we stood against."

"So we should recon the area first." Ruby said, coming into the room with Paul, both still wet from showering.

"Ahh nice of you to join us." Jack said, looking up at them and smirking. "Hope we dinah take yea away from anything important."

"I can still smell what we took em away from." I said, making a face. "Water, soap and sex...gross combination." The two blushed deeply, and, feeling kind of bad that I was teasing them, I launched into my explanation one last time for Paul and Ruby.

"That makes perfect sense." Paul said at the conclusion. "We built a facility there, hidden away in the forested area of the reservation. We paid a fortune for them to allow us to build there, and a fortune more to have the whole thing built in secret."

"So we go Recon the place." Ruby said again. "We'll borrow one of the other Vertibirds, fly out, set down a few miles from there and sneak in."

"Eye'm game." Jack grinned, putting on his accent again. "It's been too long since eye had a chance ta go out an' really brawl."

"I'd feel safer knowing you're there." Ruby grinned. "Baddest ass in the wasteland, we'll probably get there, stop the bad guys and be home for dinner."

"Damned straight." Jack laughed.

"Fine, we'll get this cleared with the higher ups and be on our way ASAP." Brutus said, standing up from the desk. "What about CB?" He asked, looking at Ruby. "She's supposed to go on these missions with us to learn."

"But this isn't a delivery run." Ruby said seriously. "This is a hugely risky mission. We could well die out there."

"We could well die every day in this hellhole." Lily said.

"Dammit...What do you guys think?" She asked, looking at Jack and Crackshot.

"She'll be FURIOUS if we don't take her." Crackshot said. "Risk doesn't factor into it with her."

"Eye'll keep her safe." Jack said. "Bodyguard for the wee lass first, warrior of death and destruction second."

"Alright." Ruby said, still not looking particularly thrilled at the prospect. "I'll get her when they break for lunch in an hour. How much prep time does everyone need?"

"I'm ready now." I shrugged.

"Us too, just gotta grab our packs from our quarters." Crackshot said.

"I need to change into my going out clothes." Brutus smirked, looking down at his shirt.

"I need to finish testing my armour!" Lily said in horror. "An hour at least?" She asked and Ruby just nodded. "Well if I don't finish it I'll keep working on it in the sky wagon."

"Vertibird." I corrected.

"Yeah that thing."

So we headed out once again to prepare to face off against unknown odds to try and restore the Wasteland.


//////////


"You sure this is going to work?" I asked Lily, studying the armour pieces she now wore. Gauntlets half way to her elbows, boots much the same, the collar and finally the deceptively simple looking pack on her back.

"Absolutely. Check this shit out." She grinned. She threw her plasma caster into the air and with a flash of green energy the armour deployed, gauntlets shooting up her arms to her shoulders, boots again doing the same, up to her waist. The pack squeaked a little but it wrapped around her smoothly, wrapping to her shoulders and linking against the arm plating, down around her crotch and linking to the leg pieces, finally it wrapped up around her neck, connecting to the collar as the helmet completed the ensemble. Her eyes lit up green, the same as her magic, and she caught the gun. "See? Piece of cake." She said in her neutral robotic voice.

"WOW!" CB yelled, coming up behind us. "You're like ¡La Fantoma!" She said, walking around Lily and marveling at the armour.

"No no I'm The Mysterious..." Lily trailed off, the helmet opening again and wrapping down around her neck. "¡La Fantoma! I like that...Yeah, nothing says I have to be Mare Do Well here." She smirked.

"That is impressive." Ruby said, studying the armour curiously herself. "I'm amazed you got this done so quickly."

"Well like I said, I have been planning it out for a long time. I knew how it had to be done, what was needed and the tools to do it. I had to adapt it to a human form suit but that was nothing. Best part..." She slid the gun back into it's holster on her back, a magnet locking it in place, slots on the back of the armour popped open and she used her magic to create a pair of metal looking wings that matched her armour perfectly. She held her hands out to CB who slowly reached out and took them. Lily pulled her close and the two floated into the air and soared back and fourth together, CB giggling and hugged Lily tightly as the two flew around the docking bay. To an outside observer it appeared to be technology built into the suit, it might look cool and unexpected, but nothing weird or magical about it.

"Oh Lord she's flyin' now." Jack laughed as he and Crackshot came into the bay. "Dinna drop her!"

"Drop what?" Lily asked, turning hard and letting CB slip from her grip.

The girl barely had a chance to scream in terror before Lily caught her in a magic bubble and set her on the ground.

"THAT WAS AMAZING!" She cheered as Lily set down again, her wings 'retracting' back into the suit.

"That's not funny!" Brutus said, looking horrified.

"Oh grow up you big grump." CB said, sticking her tongue out at him. "It's just fun, not that you know much about that."

"Oh, burn." Ruby laughed, moving towards the Vertibird finally and opening the hatch so we could get in. This one had a much more bland and straight forward configuration, clearly not a personal ship, no personalization or customization had gone into this ship.

"Seriously it's like having a whole group of small children." Crackshot sighed, shaking her head and getting onto the ship.

"They're the same in our dimension." Lily said, following behind her and Jack. I brought up the rear with Paul.

"So are you sure about this?" I asked him. "I know I had a tough time facing down my brother..."

"No I'm not sure, but I know I have to do this." He said, shaking his head and looking at me kind of sadly.

"Don't worry about it, it'll all work out I'm sure." I said, speaking up a little as the ship shook and the engines whined to life. A moment later we were airborne and headed for the base. I knew how Paul had to be feeling, I still felt the same way, having to go and confront Venture yet again...This time I'd stop him completely, even if it meant smashing that stupid brain bowl open with Ebony while I turned the brain to ash with Ivory...


//////////


"You gotta be fucking kidding me...it's a trap." I said flatly, floating the binoculars to my eyes again. The small town down below us was totally deserted, no pyros, no soldiers, no people of any kind. The buildings were run down and crumbling, the road through town in the same state, it looked like any other stretch of abandoned buildings in the wasteland, this one or the Equestrian one. Paul's facility sat tucked into one of the side streets, it didn't have quite the linear design of my building back home, but it had a similar minimalistic military design.

"Hey! Language!" CB said, flicking my ear. She had armoured up again on the flight out and was fully decked in her metal armour and outfitted with her explosives.

"Sorry." I muttered, realizing I had heard her swear...and others swear around her..."Why are you suddenly so worried about my vocabulary?" I asked.

"You're a pretty cartoon of a pony, you shouldn't talk like the adults here."

"Uhh...thanks?" I laughed softly.

"So what do we do?" Paul asked.

"I say we go down and snoop around." Crackshot said. "Check out the buildings and move slowly towards the facility, then kick down the door and start shooting."

"Oh aye Clare, that sounds like a bonnie good idea." Jack chuckled. "Perhaps we should jes' start throwin' grenades from here, then charge in ta town screamin' war cries." 

"Lily, how about you do some aerial surveillance?" Brutus asked. "They won't be expecting a lone person flying through the night sky."

"Ooo, good idea." Lily said, nodding and stretching out a bit before her wings popped out of the back of her armour and she flew off into the air. We watched her fly through the air slowly back and fourth, plasma caster in her hands, ready to defend herself if the need arose. It was certainly advantageous to have a flyer around when she was the only one in the whole world.

"I don't see anything..." She said when she finally returned and landed, her wings vanishing again. "I hate to think this is a trap, but it has to be. It's just too quiet..."

"Well nothing we can do but press on." Paul said.

"Well we COULD go back to the base and return in force." Ruby said.

"Nay lassie." Jack said. "We return with an army an' it'll tip ow're hand, I say we push on."

"Jack's right." Brutus said, looking down over the town again. "Trap or not...We leave, they'll know we're coming back in force and they prepare for it, they DON'T know, we return in force, there's no way to sneak up with a group that big, and they still have some time to rally their forces..."

"Fine, lets do this." I said finally, turning back to the path and moving slowly into town, the others following. Paul fell into step beside me, Brutus Ruby and Lily covering the sides and Crackshot covering our rear. Jack walked beside CB in the middle of the group.

"I wish there WERE people to fight, then I wouldn't be so worried." Brutus said softly as we reached the facility. A camera sat outside, but it was pointed away from the door and long broken.

"I don't understand..." Paul said, looking around nervously. "There's just NO ONE...I mean Cas isn't that sloppy in a pre-apocalypse world, let alone the Wasteland." He slid open a panel beside the door to reveal a green glass plate with an outline of a hand on it, it glowed faintly. He put his palm to it and the light vanished, then a single beam of light swept down along the pad, then back up again.

~Welcome back Doctor Cane.~ Displayed across the screen. ~Please present audio identification.~ Replaced it and a moment later a jingle played from a hidden speaker. I should have known there would be harmonic locks here too. Paul looked surprised by the song that played but shook his head a little and smiled.

"There are loved ones in the glory, whose dear forms you often miss. When you close your earthly story, will you join them in their bliss? Will the circle, be unbroken, by and by, by and by? Is a better, home awaiting, in the sky, Lord, in the sky?" He sang back and the door chirped and hissed open.

"Wow...I forgot how sad that song is..." Crackshot said softly, leaning against Jack for a moment.

"Oddly fitting though." Paul said. "He knew we were coming..." We walked into the foyer slowly, weapons still at the ready. The foyer was tall and open, displays of robots and machines sat roped off, also long abandoned, even a cryopod was on display, sitting open so you could see inside of it.

"WELCOME WELCOME ONE AND ALL!" An automated voice blared over the PA, making everyone jump in surprise. "SO GLAD YOU COULD COME VISIT! UNFORTUNATELY DUE TO THE CURRENT SITUATION GOING ON BETWEEN OUR GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNMENTS OF OTHER COUNTRIES ALL TOURS ARE SUSPENDED. WE MUST ASK YOU TO LEAVE AND RETURN AFTER WE ARE AGAIN OPEN FOR BUSINESS."

"GlaDOS?" Paul called out. "We're not tourists."

"Doctor Cane." The automated voice replied in a much lower tone. "I was unaware you were bringing guests along with you, my systems assumed they were simply tourists entering with you."

"No no, this whole group is with me...Is...is my brother here?" He asked.

Instead of an answer though, we got an alarm klaxon, red lights flashing and a massive gate slamming over the front door. "CHINESE INFILTRATORS HAVE BREACHED THE FACILITY! CHINESE INFILTRATORS HAVE BREACHED THE FACILITY!"

"Wait what?!" Paul turned around to study the room.

"LOOK OUT!" CB screamed over the sound of the alarm. Before I could identify the cause of her alarm I found a much worse problem, the floor beneath me had dropped out and I was falling into a shaft in the floor. It was designed for a human though so I struck the ground painfully and was flipped backwards, my horn smashing hard against the ground and dazing me badly, keeping me from focusing enough to use magic to keep from falling. I was plunged into darkness as I fell. I thought I heard someone else scream but I wasn't sure. I crashed hard to the ground and the whole world went black.


//////////


I came back to a splitting migraine and a total inability to focus my powers or my vision. I felt nauseous in the worst way. There were two blurs in front of me side by side, one was black and grey, the other was yellow and blue.

"Oh he's waking up..." I recognized Crackshot's gravely voice. "How're you doing Cane?" She asked, her hand running gently through my mane.

"My head hurts, my eyes won't focus and I can't make my head stop throbbing long enough to focus my magic to get a healing potion from my pack."

"It's not your head..." She said softly. "Sections of the floor opened up and you and I were unlucky enough to be over two of those, I don't know about the others. You came down head first and it knocked you out. I managed to land on my bony ass, but a half dozen robots were waiting for us, they took our stuff and threw us in this cell...They also put a ring on your horn. My new friend here was just telling me about how that works. You were out for about half an hour."

I reached up with a hoof and rubbed at my eyes while Crackshot helped me sit up. I looked at her for a long moment until my eyes could focus again, then over at the other blur.

It took a moment for my eyes to catch up again. The ring was the first thing I recognized. It was magical suppression ring, four wires came off of it down around the face and to a collar around the neck, which had four shotgun shells seated in it in correlation to where the wires came down, so try to pull the ring off, the collar blows your head off. But then I was drawn to the face...the unicorn sitting across from me...The bright blue eyes, the matching blue mane that hung off the side of his neck, too long and in desperate need of a cut, the coat, bright yellow but dulled with dirt and grime...the cutie mark grid of binary code adorning his flank.

"Hey little brother..." He said softly, managing a weak, embarrassed smile.

Footnote: Level up

Perk Added: PERK SYSTEM OFFLINE DUE TO INTERFERENCE FROM MAGICAL SUPPRESSION DEVICE, PLEASE REMOVE DEVICE TO SELECT NEW PERK


> Chapter 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7:

“But you were...And now you're...How did you...Where's your...WHAT THE FUCK?!” I leapt at him and had to stop myself from clocking him in the side of the head, it would have pulled the strings on the left side of the collar and blown his head off.

“I know, I know, I know.” He said, putting his hooves up.

“You...” I blinked away tears. “You bastard.” I shifted and threw myself at him again, hugging him tightly this time.

He returned the hug for a moment before he pushed me away. “Alright alright, quit with the girly crap...”

“What happened to you?” I asked, sitting back slowly. “I mean, you're not a robot anymore...”

“I used my DNA sequence to program the Crusader computer, I think when I passed through it, it rebuilt me using my brain and my horn as a base. You don't have any of the injuries you had when I last saw you either.”

“Yeah I was healed passing through the portal.” I nodded.

“Why'd you go through the portal?”

“To come look for you, and because when you were pulled through on our side, someone on this side was pulled through and dumped in our world.”

“Should we not be concerned that you came here to kill him and now he's sitting here in front of you?” Crackshot asked.

“I wouldn't fault you for it either.” Ven said, looking at the ground quietly. “It's been a long time since I've felt guilt, but I have it in spades now. I don't know if it was part of the transformation back into a pony...but I seem to have gotten over my 200 years of psychosis...”

“Gotten over?” I asked flatly. “Is that how it works?”

“I can't explain it. I came through, my body rebuilt, it hurt so so badly.” He explained. “I was overwhelmed by guilt, I found myself in this facility, and face to face with my human counterpart. Human as he was anyway. He'd done the same thing as me, replaced his body parts with robotics, put his brain in the machine...He was a monster, just like me. I begged him to stop what he was doing, tried so hard to explain it was wrong. I know I can't make up for my mistakes, but I had hoped to at least prevent them from happening here too. I realized quickly that I was in the past compared to our world. He hadn't organized his version of the pyros yet, he'd spent all his time working on his own machine.”

“Another inter dimensional gateway we can use to get home.” I said.

“No...” He shook his head. “A time machine...He wants to go back before the war and take over the world when it was recovering from a world war it had fought earlier in it's history.”

“World War Two.” Crackshot said.

“You mean your planet had more than one?”

“Technically the apocalypse was World War three.” She said.

“Yeah, he was going to go back to the weeks after the second world war had ended and he was going to attack the remaining superpowers and provoke them into open conflict with each other, then step in and take over when they were stretched too thin to stop him. I assume he hasn't gone through with it yet since I still see his soldiers and he still tortures me for information from time to time.”

“From time to time?” I asked.

“Yeah, less and less as the years have gone on.”

“YEARS?!” I exclaimed, looking at him in amazement. “It's only been 3 days since I got here!”

“Maybe in Equestria. Here it's been...” He looked at a calender on the wall outside the cell, it was 200 years out of date but he still studied it. “It's been 7 years since I got dumped here.”

“Wow...I guess you really are the older brother now...” I said softly, managing a small smile.

“Always was.” He chuckled.

“Wait, when you came through the portal it opened up here?” I asked. “When Paul was pulled through the portal he was MILES from here...”

“Paul?” He asked.

“This world's version of me.”

“Oh...I wonder if the genetics tagging caused it.” He said thoughtfully.

“Do we have the same genetics as our human counterparts?”

“Castor and I had genetics basically as close as the two of us.”

“So it's possible that the computer locked onto the most similar DNA sequences and opened the portals accordingly, since the two of us were together it only opened one portal.”

“Goddamn it.” Crackshot sighed. “Are you two just going to ramble at each other all night or are we getting out of here?”

“We're scientists, we like to piece things together and get answers to questions.” I said, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry,” Venture said, “I've been in this cell for years, I haven't found a way out yet, these suppressor rings he's got stuck on us not only make magic impossible it keeps us from being able to use our horns as a tool of any kind without risking blowing our heads off.”

I poked at the ring on my horn and sighed deeply. “I'm guessing he learned how to make these from you?”

“I kept hundreds of specs and digital copies of books and various magical texts in the pipbuck built into my robotic leg,” he said, “He's got the plans for everything from suppressor rings to Pyro control masks to the Crusader Computer. Even memory cubes and the weight nullifying magi-tech used in Sky Wagons. I haven't seen proof that magic works here outside of my own limited use so I don't know how he managed to reverse engineer these rings, but they work so who knows what else he might have figured out how to make?”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“Well these collars are more restrictive for ponies because we have no hands to work on them, but Crackshot here was trying to get the collars unlocked so we can get them off.”

“Except they have a hell of a hair trigger on em.” She sighed, looking over the collar I wore too. “Same problem.”

“Fucksake...” I hissed.

“Hey, language!” A little voice whispered from the darkness beyond the cell.

“What? CB?” Crackshot looked around in amazement.

“I'm in the vent.” She said, her voice closer now.

“What happened to everyone else?”

“We split up to look for you. Ruby and Paul, me and Grandpa Jack, and Lily went with Brutus. We went down into the basement and we could hear you through the vents, but we didn't want anyone to know we were down here so we hid in a supply closet and I went through the vents so I could follow your voices.”

“Sweetie you have to be careful, there're robots out there.”

“What? Oh the robots are all shut down in their pods.” She said, the vent outside the cell opened and her head popped out. “Aww look-it you guys all locked up with...” She paused when she saw Venture. “You found another unicorn.” She shifted and flipped down out of the vent, holding onto the edge as she turned and dropped to the floor. Her metal armour had been discarded, but she still had a pack slung over her shoulder “What's your name?” She asked.

“CB, we need to get out of here first, worry about introductions later.” I said.

“Oh right...” She wandered over to the desk that sat in front of the calender Venture had been consulting. “There's no keys in here...” She said after going through all the drawers. “Or here...” She pulled open a pair of lockers. “Oh well...guess we do it the hard way. Shouldn't be any trouble for me, the master of lock picking.” She smirked, coming over to the cell door. She dug into her pocket and came out with a bobby pin and screw driver.

“Oh CB, do you have any wire cutters in your tools?” Crackshot asked.

“Of course, how else can you disarm tripwires?” She dug into her pack and pulled out a pair of wire cutters. She passed them to Crackshot through the bars.

“Just...be careful...” I said as the ghoul leaned in and held the cutters to the first cable. With a gentle 'click' the first wire came away without incident. She pulled the wire down and it popped the shotgun shell out of it's casing around my neck, then she carefully did the same with each cable around my neck, cutting it and popping out the shotgun shell. Finally she took the ring off my horn and I let out a great sigh of relief, I hadn't even realized I'd been holding my breath the whole time as I felt a rush of magical energy course through my body again, making me feel awake and focused again, all the pain in my head seeming to melt away. 

(PERK ADDED: FOR SCIENCE, YOU MONSTER: Reading a skill magazine not only grants +5 to a skill temporarily, it now adds a temporary boost of +1 strength and endurance for the duration of the magazine's effects. Additionally when going up against robots you have a +20% critical hit chance)

“Thank you.” I sighed, my horn lighting up and tearing the collar from my neck quickly.

Venture sat quietly on the bench, looking hopeful but saying nothing. He knew he had no right to ask for his freedom anymore, but damned if I could find it in me to leave him.

“You listen to me...” I said, stepping in front of him again and looking him dead in the eyes. CB popped the lock on the door and slid it open with a triumphant laugh.

“Lets go find our guns.” Crackshot said, pushing her away from the cell. She was smart, she knew we needed a moment.

“You listen to me,” I said again, “you're my brother, I love you, but I don't trust you further than I can throw you without magic.”

He just nodded quietly.

I wrapped my magic around the collar around his neck, wrapping it in layer after layer of magic shielding until the magic was actually digging into his neck, chocking him somewhat.

“You threatened my family, you tried to use them to hurt me, to say nothing of the hundreds of ponies you subjugated and killed in the name of furthering your own agenda. You shouldn't expect forgiveness from me any time soon,” I tightened my grip on him, and heard him gurgle slightly in pain, “but you are at least due tolerance.” 

With a yank, I pulled the collar in half with my powers, tearing it from his neck, all four shotgun shells going off, my magic easily absorbing the energy, leaving him unharmed and panting softly. “You get out of line, you try to betray us, you do anything I don't like and I'll bury Ebony and Ivory so far down your throat you'll shit laser and piss plasma when I pull the triggers understood?”

He nodded again and I finally reached up and removed the suppression ring from his horn. He groaned deeply as magic coursed through him again for the first time in years.

“Dude, make it sound a little more sexual...” I sighed, shaking my head, but instead of a witty come back he just shook his head, staying silent.

“I...I just...oh god...” He sighed.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“What? Oh god?”

“Yeah.”

“It's the same as saying Sweet Celestia or Luna damn it, it's what they call their deity here, or at least one of them, apparently there are thousands of deities all over the world here from all these different cultures. Castor was nice enough to let me read during my captivity so I read dozens of encyclopedias.”

“Well  knowing is half the battle.”

“What's the other half?” CB asked, coming back into the room with Crackshot and Jack

“Violence.” Crackshot said, laughing bitterly. “So we're not taking him out back and putting him down like a dog?”

“Not right now we're not.” I replied.

“A'right, can we git the others and git out?” Jack asked. “I don' wanna be here if the robots wake up, we come back with an army.” He pulled Ebony and Ivory out of his pockets and held them out to me.

“Yeah I think that's best.” I said, grabbing the guns from him and charging them up quickly before tucking them into their holsters.

“Oh, also I'm guessing this is Paul's so I swiped it too.” Crackshot said, holding out a sword.

“No way, another Thorn.” I laughed, taking the sword and sliding it out of it's scabbard, CANE inscribed at the bottom.

“Look.” I held out my Pipbuck, Rose's Thorn displayed on the inventory screen below Ebony and Ivory. “I had one of these, lost it in a fire.” I slid the sword into the holder my own had occupied on my armour.

Venture coughed softly and I looked at him. “What?”

“Uhh...It might kinda be...in my personal collection...back home.”

“Are you bucking kidding me?”

He shook his head. “I kept a small museum in my office, rare weapons and memorabilia.” I realized as he spoke we hadn't seen an office for him, of course I hadn't really had time to scout the whole building so who knows what might have been found.

“Well I'll make sure Paul gets this one back.” I said, testing my magical ability to pull the sword out and wield it, amazingly the sword seemed to handle exactly the same as an Equestrian sword, except for the lack of a good bite grip, really just like the guns.

“Okay, lets head out.” Crackshot said, checking that the hallway was clear before starting down it, the rest of us falling in line, Jack bringing up the rear.

“We're supposed to meet back up in the lobby.” CB explained.

“Well then that's where we'll go.” I nodded. We moved quietly through the building, passing dozens of deactivated robot terminals, each with an occupant still in the storage pod beside it. I paused at each and locked them down and blew out the controls with a quick concussive blast from my horn.

“This is actually worse than going through your base, of course your base was a trap too, but still, you still weren't a total unknown variable.” I said, looking over at Venture as we moved quietly up the stairs.

“Yeah...sorry about that. Would you believe I spent weeks trying to figure out the best way to have you come into the base? I was going to go with something very similar to this, but you caught up to me faster than I had planned, so I just sent every one out into the brawl outside so the base was clear when I finally called you in.” He explained, clearly embarrassed to be telling me at all.

Crackshot opened the door at the top of the stairs and we emerged into the lobby. There was a quiet groan and we moved out quickly. Paul lay a few feet away, just inside one of the side halls, there were scorch marks on the walls around him, some still smoking

“Paul, what happened?!” I asked, running over and helping him up.

“We were on our way back...got jumped by a group of bots, they hit us with some kind of...I dunno, stun gun...taser...thing, as I went down I saw them hauling Ruby off, then I blacked out.” He leaned against the wall and held his chest, two burn marks on his jumpsuit showing where the blasts had struck. 

I floated a Stim-Pak out of my bags and offered it to him. He waved it off and I tucked it away again. “Are you sure you'll be okay?”

“I'll be fine...I'm glad to see you again, I was scared shit less when I saw you drop through the floor like that.” He said. “It sounded painful and I thought your horn might break from the impact...”

“Yeah it wasn't pleasant, but I'm here safe and sound.” I said. “Now lets go free Ruby.” I started down the hall, then paused and looked back at him. “Oh right, this is yours.” I floated the sword free and held it out to him. He took it curiously and slid the blade out of the sheath. “Compliments of Rosa.” I grinned.

“Oh wow...she really was amazing with a weapon.” He said, testing the blade a little before sliding it back into the scabbard and sliding it through a belt loop on his suit.

“Can we git a move on now?” Jack asked. “This place in'a exactly safe t'chat.”

“Oh right, sorry.” Paul said. “What about Brutus and Lily?”

“We can't wait for them, Ruby is in danger now.”  CB said seriously. “They can follow the sound of gun shots and exploding robots.”

“Kid's right, we gotta go now.” Crackshot said.

“Then lets get moving.”

We continued down the hall, and all the more I felt like the trap was getting ready to spring closed. I could hear robots moving in the distance, random mutterings from them, the whir of treads or the clank of metallic feet.

“Castor had converted the storage area to a staging ground, much like I had.” Venture offered, pointing to the massive metal double doors at the end of one hall.

“Alright we'll do that way then.” I said, moving down the hall slowly, Ebony and Ivory twirling idly beside me, long since charged. Venture walked just a half step beside me, then Crackshot, CB behind her, then Paul, then Jack. 

We came up to the doors and I pressed them open with a magic shield so any pending attacks would be absorbed or deflected, but again we met with no resistance, though a scream did echo from above us.

I looked up to discover Ruby, tied up tightly, dangling almost 30 feet in the air, duct tape stuck over her mouth.

“Hold on Ruby we're coming!” CB called as the others spread out along the wall. The area was massive, designed to hold chemical vats judging from the cat walks and massive ventilation system, to say nothing of the huge flood grates in the floor and the raised areas that not only sectioned off the area into five sections but would allow workers to remain unharmed in the event a tank breached.

Ruby struggled and squirmed, screaming through the gag.

“Would you stop moving around so much?” I asked, grabbing her in my magic to pull her down, pulling off the duct tape at the same time.

“IT'S A TRAP!” She roared, just in time for two very distinct noises to follow, the distinct SHING of a sword being drawn quickly, followed by the sickening sound of a limb going SPLAT to the ground.

I whipped around quickly to find my target, only to come face to face with the last horror I'd have expected.

Paul stood with CB held tightly to him, the Rose's Thorn, already dripping with gore, held to her neck. She was missing her left arm right at the shoulder, the arm lay on the ground just a few feet in front of them as he was pulling her towards the exit door. Blood poured from her arm, soaking the side of her body.

“NO! CB!” Ruby roared and we all started to make a move but Paul acted quickly.

“AHH AHH!” He yelled, pressing the sword harder into her neck. “One false move and she's dead, and you don't want to keep me standing around too long or she'll bleed out.”

“You monster!” Crackshot snapped. “You played us for chumps!”

“I played your whole organization like a harp from hell.” He laughed darkly. “You've never met Paul, none of you ever will either. Dear Star Venture here met me a few times, back before my down grade from robot back to human.”

“YOU'ER Castor?” Jack asked, pistols in his hands, at his side but more than ready to strike.

“And two points for the drunken Scot.”

“But how can you just be a human?”

“I built a TIME MACHINE.” He laughed. “I can be anything I want!” He had reached the door and he shoved CB at Jack and threw the sword at me, it missed by a good meter, and dashed out, the door slamming shut behind him, Crackshot and I tried to chase him but the door had locked when it closed.

Jack let the guns fall from his hands as he caught her. “CB, say something.” He said, looking down at her as he slid to the ground with her.

“Did...Did he cut my arm off?” She asked. “I can't feel anything...”

“Y...Yeah he did.”

“Dammit, I liked that arm.” She actually managed a chuckle, but she was so pale and so quiet.

“SOMEONE GET ME DOWN!” Ruby roared from above, thrashing violently against her restraints.

I grabbed her and pulled her off the hook with my magic, lowering her to the ground and using Thorn to cut the rope away.

“Oh CB, I'm so sorry baby.” She cried, hugging the little girl tightly. “Can't we do anything for her?”

“We don't have the tools to help her.” Crackshot said, shaking her head.

“I...” Venture started then trailed off when we all looked at him. “I can't fix the arm but I can help her...”

“What? How? Just do it!” Ruby demanded. Venture looked at me and I just nodded.

Venture stepped over to her, but as he did the shutters on the second floor snapped open, revealing dozens or robots.

“ELIMINATE THE RED MENACE!” They shouted in unison and then they opened fire, lasers, plasma blasts, missiles, they all rained down from above. I threw up a shield and caught the attack, immediately buckling under the barrage of blasts. Crackshot started firing on them, I managed to warp my shield so her bullets would pass through without letting any of their attacks in.

“D...Don't worry about it.” CB said. “You guys have to worry about getting out of here, don't waste time with me.” She wrapped an arm around Ruby. “I love you all the same Mommy.”

“What? But...How did you..?” Ruby shifted back and looked at her in confusion.

“Come on.” She smirked. “You've spent so much time with me over the years, ever since I was a baby you and Brutus were there for me, somehow I was born 11 months after mom...Elizabeth's husband died, and the picture,” she looked at Jack, “two hundred years of you taking pictures with your children and their children, and suddenly you just decide to take a picture with your grandson, his friend and the kid they like to hang out with?” She was getting quieter and clearly weaker.

“Oh...” Jack laughed a little. “Eye...didn't think about that...” He said, forcing his accent away and blinking back tears.

“You grown ups are never thinking things throu....OW!” CB yelped as Venture floated the Thorn along her shoulder where said sword had just cut her arm off only minutes earlier. The blade was glowing bright red, almost white, with heat and as he slid the blade along it cauterized the wound.

“There...” He dropped the sword and injected her with a Super Stim-Pak.

“MOTHER FUCKING PONY PIECE OF SHIT!” She screamed, the colour returning to her cheeks.

“HEY! Language!” I yelled back at her.

“What did you do?” Ruby asked.

“I used my magic to excite the molecules of the sword, heating the blade to burn the wound closed, then a Stim-Pak to fix her up and help with the blood loss.” He stepped back and added his own magic to the shield I was struggling to maintain, changing it from it's darker blue hue to an almost emerald green as his yellow magic mixed in.

CB sat up slowly, shifting side to side. “Dammit now I have to learn to pick locks one handed...” She sighed.

“Well now's as good a time as any!” I called. “We need to get the fuck outta here and that door is the only way out.”

“I could use a little help here too Sweetie.” Crackshot said and Jack nodded, moving away from CB and taking up his guns again, opening fire on the robots, again using his amazing knack for shooting missiles to explode them before they could hit the shields, which really helped relieve the burden on the shields.

Ruby helped CB over to the door and they started trying to work on the lock, but it was slow going.

“Dammit...” I grunted, slipping down as I struggled to maintain the shields, falling to my knees. “We're going to need a miracle to get out of this...”

Footnote: Maximum level reached.

Companion Perk added: Brotherly Love: Thanks to your years together and complimentary skills whenever you work with Venture, terminal hack attempts are 20% easier and you will be presented with more options in certain dialogues thanks to his input. Also, despite all his failings...you got your brother back and that has to count for something right?
> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Warning: Due to my penchant for pop culture references this chapter contains mild Iron Man 3 spoilers. You have been warned.)

Chapter 8:

“Dammit...” I grunted, slipping down as I struggled to maintain the shields, falling to my knees. “We're going to need a miracle to get out of this...”

"SOMEBODY SAY MY NAME?!" Rumbled a deep terrifying voice from somewhere above us. There was a horrifying smash as the windows on the third floor exploded and a massive black and red dragon burst into the room above us, wrapped in a familiar green shield. Ruby red fire shot from it's mouth, engulfing the second floor slowly, the robots vanishing behind the flame, missiles exploding harmlessly in the flames, well not harmlessly, they blew up inches from the robots that fired them, simply causing more damage to themselves and the others around them. Lasers shot out through the flame, bursts of plasma too, but they exploded harmlessly against the shield around the dragon

Slowly the lasers and plasma blasts stopped as the overwhelming heat caused the robots to cook, circuitry melting, sensors burning out, until finally the only sound left was the crackling of the flame and the panting of the dragon.

"You guys okay?" The dragon asked, the voice horrifying but so familiar.

"Yeah, we're good Lily thanks..."

The dragon was wrapped in green light, slowly shrinking back to her normal size, the light vanishing and being replaced with Lily, back in pony form, panting deeply.

"So you can breath fire?" I asked, she just smirked.

"Hey! LITTLE HELP?!" Brutus bellowed from the roof just outside the windows Lily had smashed through. I grabbed him in my magic and lifted him down to us.

"What the fuck happened in here?!" Brutus asked, looking around the area. "CB!" He ran to the door, seeing the injury the girl had sustained.

"Don't worry about me Daddy, worry about getting that no good Paul." She said fiercely, totally focused on the lock on the door, a bobby pin in her mouth and a screw driver in her hand.

"What? Wait...huh?" He looked stupidly at the rest of us.

"Paul isn't who he claimed to be." I said bitterly, sitting down to try and keep the room from spinning after all the strain I'd put on my magic. Venture and Lily did the same. "HE'S Castor..." I was mentally kicking myself for being so taken in by him for so long. I was an idiot, I knew myself, I saw things in him I knew were wrong and yet I'd over looked them basically out of scientific curiosity. 

"What? That bastard!" Brutus growled. "Wait...Daddy?" He looked at CB, his face white as a sheet.

"Yeah I know." She said, taking the bobby pin out of her mouth. "I'm not dumb."

"I...I guess?" He shrugged.

Jack laughed and patted his back. "Don't worry about it m'boy." The ghoul came over and knelt in front of me. "That was an impressive light show you put on there, you saved everyone, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it."

"How do you even know what I'm thinking?" I asked.

"You get to be as old as me, you learn to read people."

"I'm a pony, according to computer records my kind, such as it was, went extinct in the apocalypse, how did you learn to read my emotions?"

"I'm just that good." He smirked, mussing my mane. "Just don't beat yourself up about it my little pony."

"Yes sir." I smiled, standing up and shaking off my depression.

"Alright, lets get after that asshole," I said, stepping forward, "excuse me ladies." Ruby and CB moved back and I stuck my horn to the lock, channeling as much energy as I could into it and blowing out the lock with a massive discharge, the plating on the other side firing out and clattering against the wall. I pulled Rose's Thorn from the ground and wiped the blood from the blade.

"Hey! I was gonna keep that blood!" CB said indignantly. I looked at her curiously and she just smirked. "Dude, gross." She said, sticking her tongue out.

"Alright, I just wanted to make sure. You humans have weird practices." I slid the blade into it's spot on my barding, even without the scabbard, which Paul seemed to have left attached to his belt when he ran, it sat comfortably and was easily pulled out for use.

"Ready?" I asked, looking to the others, all with weapons drawn and ready. I looked intently at Venture for a moment then turned back to the door but Jack leaned down close to me before I could open it.

"He could have done nothing, and left CB to die on the floor. I think he's earned at least a little trust." He whispered.

"Alright fine..." I sighed softly, turning back to my brother. "DON'T...Make me regret this..." I said, pulling Ebony from her holster and holding it out to him. He just smiled softly and nodded, taking the gun and holding it down beside him.

I moved back to the door and yanked it open, seeing the three or four indicators pop up on my E.F.S. showing the robots that had amassed at the ends of the hallway.

"There's at least three bots at each end of the hall."

"At least?"

"They're clustered so close together I can't get an accurate read from my E.F.S."

"I believe this is your department Jackie boy." Crackshot said.

"Yes ma'am." He smirked, stepping up to the doorway, taking a deep breath.

"Allow me." I said, throwing a shield around him, much easier to shield a single target than the whole area I had been protecting earlier.

"Thanks lad, the missus would never forgive me if I got shot." He laughed, pulling his plasma pistols and stepping into the hall, opening fire, one pistol pointed in each direction.

It was like watching in slow motion, Jack's pistols blazing as plasma spat out the ends, passing through the rippling shield and lancing out at the robots, the roar of missiles as they exploded, the bursts of heat and kinetic energy smashing against my shield as the shock waves and heat were forced down the confined halls. My Pipbuck showed two still on the right and one on the left. He turned right and opened fire with both pistols, laser bolts vanishing harmlessly against my shield, which I realized was glowing green again.

I looked to my left and saw Lily sitting there, adding her power to the shield, Venture on my right doing the same.

After two more explosions in the hallway he turned and started with the last robot, which took only moments before one last blast tore through the hall, blowing out a chunk of wall a dozen meters or so from us.

"Well, that wasn't so bad." He smirked, turning back to us, the spent plasma batteries popping from the guns before he snapped in fresh ones, the pistols whining as they recharged. "Now shall we go get that bastard?"

"Totally." I nodded, moving into the hall with him, the others following, Lily transforming back into her human form, her armour flying through the shattered window, she bent and twisted as the pieces of armour flew to her, snapping onto her body and redeploying along her, covering her again.

"You gotta teach me that trick."

"Sorry, Changeling secret." She smirked.

CB paused just long enough to pick up her arm, wrapping it in a towel she had in her pack, with Ruby's help, and tucked it away to take home, then took the pistol from her hip and nodded. "Lets do it."


//////////


The next hour was frantic, every junction, every hall, every room, had robots in it. When we came across those at a distance Jack would usually dispatch them with lethal efficiency, in the smaller rooms Venture, Lily and I would throw shields into the rooms, pinning the robots to the walls and causing them to explode when they tried to fire missiles at us. 

Finally we found our way to the stairs, and with a quick effort, cleared the way to the third floor, which seemed to be the top.

"This place is built like a lot of old military bases." Jack informed us. "The top was executive offices and top secret labs." As if on cue a loud whining noise came from beyond the door and we rushed in, finding no offices or labs, just a massive open area.

Castor stood at the far end, typing furiously on a computer as a massive gird of pipes groaned and rattled.

"HEY!" Jack fired at Castor, but the plasma burst against a shield a few feet from Castor's back. A dozen robots opened fire on us but our own shields held nicely despite the amount of effort we had to continually put into it though Jack and Brutus and Crackshot opened fire on the robots just as quickly.

"STOP FIRING!" Castor roared, his voice almost hysterical in it's rage, and the robots stopped, though that didn't stop Jack from blowing up three more of them before hesitating.

"You monster!" Ruby snapped, bringing up her assault rifle and opening fire on Castor, but the bullets hit the shield and fell uselessly to the ground.

"Aww what's the matter Ruby?" He asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Are you angry that I hurt your precious baby girl? Or are you mad that you put your trust in a man for the first time since your...time with the Enclave, only to end up betrayed again?" He laughed.

Ruby choked back a response and I could see tears in her eyes that she blinked away.

"Paul...Castor...Whatever...I don't understand...You have a time machine, why are we even standing here having this conversation?" I asked, stepping forward slowly. "If your machine has worked as long as Venture has been here why haven't you gone back in time and taken over already?"

"Why? WHY?! He's why!" He said, pointing a finger at Venture.

"Me? What do I have to do with it?"

"Your Pip-Buck." He said, gesturing upwards, a massive computer monitor above his head coming to life, showing Ven's old robot body. "It contained data I could never have imagined. MAGIC...fucking MAGIC weapons, Magic technology. Weapons that run on gems, poisonous Taint...Balefire...Magical radiation that doesn't dissipate like normal radiation. I needed that tech, the weapons, the robotics, the magic tomes, if it can be fused with technology it can be reverse engineered back into just magic, and from there I can do anything I need with it."

"So what?"

"So what?" He asked, stepping forward. "So what do you think? I had to get the technology, but how?" He stepped back to the computer and waved at the monitor, new pictures, calculations coming up on the big monitor. "I was capable of time travel, but I couldn't crack the inter-dimensional barrier, that took magic. Megaspells and Crusader Computers, things I didn't have access to. Fluttershy had geniuses working for her to develop Megaspells."

"But...what about you?" I asked dumbly. "I mean...you're me...or something...We talk the same, we act the same, we have Ebony and Ivory...I SAW the emotion in your eyes when I talked about Rosalea."

"Close, so close." He said, shaking his head. "I'm him." He pointed to Venture. "Believe me I'm him. But I did something he didn't have the guts to do. I dealt with my stupid brother. I went and got him from cryo storage. But rather than reviving him I simply scooped his mind out, and downloaded my own back into his body. That took some doing, since the processes was meant to go human to robot not vice-versa, again your MAGIC giving you an advantage in that department, resorting dear Venture to his former pony self with little effort."

Another wave of his hand and the data started shifting, dates, times and G.P.S. coordinates. "Then what did I have to do? I had to reprogram my time machine to allow for teleportation around the Wasteland. Finally, I managed to back track the appearance of the inter-dimensional portal and set my machine to the time and location. Problem is, time flows differently in Equestria, it's faster for some reason. By the way, even if you DO get back, your friends and family are all long dead by now." He laughed. "It's been 200 years since you left."

"LIAR!" I roared, but before I could go off half cocked Venture stepped up, resuming his place as the cold and logical brother. "If time passes faster in Equestria how is it that seven years passed here while only a day or so passed in Equestria before your return here."

"Good question." Castor smirked. "I knew where I was going to have the portal reappear when I came back. I knew your brother would be the same goody two shoes..."

"FOUR shoes." CB interrupted, surprising all of us. "He's a pony, so he has FOUR shoes."

"Hey kid," Castor said, "I don't care, shut the fuck up."

"Hey ass-butt, you cut my arm off, you don't get to say shit about shit to me." She retorted.

"I'll cut your tongue out if you don't watch it."

"I can't watch my tongue, it's in my head stupid." She countered.

"CB..." Ruby said softly, but she ignored her.

"You have any more pieces of sage advice? Maybe I should keep an eye on my back? Or, or I should lick my elbow for luck? Come on genius, lets have another gem of wisdom. Seriously! You stalled for SEVEN YEARS just to get some tech? Why not go back in time, take over and THEN work on breaking inter-dimensional travel with tens of thousands of scientists enslaved to help? If you had brain one in that HUGE melon on top of your neck, you would be living the sweet life out in Southern California's beautiful San Fernando Valley, circa 1989." The rant seemed to have stunned Castor into silence.

"CB...did you just quote Ghostbusters at Castor?" Brutus asked quietly.

"Umm, yes..." She nodded.

"Okay, just checking."

"You little shit..." Castor said finally. "I'm going to kill you last. I'm going to let you watch as I gut your mommy and your daddy, then your grandparents, then Venture and dear sweet Lilith, finally I'm going to slice Cane's belly open and impale you on his horn so the two of you can sit and watch each other die."

"That's a little intense don't you think?" Lily asked, crossing her arms.

"No, no I do not." He said, again starting to work himself up into something of a frenzy. "I think it's too little for a mouthy brat like her. Maybe, maybe I'll cut out her tongue and sell her to slavers. I'm sure a little girl like that fetches a fine price."

"HEY!" I fired a concussive blast at the shield, and though the shield held the burst of magical energy made him jump. "You watch your mouth." I paused and looked at CB. "And I'll get you a mirror to do it if I have to." I added, making her grin.

"It doesn't matter! None of this matters!" He turned his back to us and resumed typing furiously on the computer. "Soon the portal will open and I'll go back in time with my army of soldiers and we'll take over the United States, broker a deal with China to stop the war before it starts, and finally we ramp up production of robotics and then invade Russia and China, taking the other two super powers in one fell swoop. They'll never know what hit them. Then I'll get to work on Inter-dimensional travel.

"Oh so suddenly my idea is good?" CB laughed. "Wow, you know you're smart when an eight year old has to come up with your ideas."

"Shut up you little fucking cun..." He was cut off as a massive explosion rocked the building and plunged the whole room into darkness.

"FINALLY!" Lily exclaimed. Her body lit up and she threw a shield bubble around Castor, hauling him off the platform and slamming him into the wall beside us.

"The fuck?" Jack exclaimed, looking around in surprise. "What just happened?"

I closed my eyes and sent a ball of light out of my horn, a spell I had had CB teach me after we first met Xem in the caves. The ball of light rose into the air, a string of magic connecting it to my horn as it lit up like a blue sun, filling the room with light again.

"We knew we were out matched when we saw the robots through the windows, so I pulled an Iron Buck 3..." Lily grinned, pressing her shield harder against Castor, who was still pinned to the wall.

"You what now?" Crackshot asked.

"Iron Buck..." CB said softly. "Iron Man? You made an automated robot out of your suit?" She asked.

"You are a clever girl." Lily grinned. "Used my magic, recorded a request for help and sent it back to the Collective, we just had to stall loud mouth here until they could arrive to help. I told them to bring EMP weapons, I didn't think they'd short out the whole building, but oh well."

"So that was...?" Jack moved towards a wall and opened a window. "That was Brotherhood knights detonating an EMP device? The collective got the Brotherhood to come out after us?"

"They want the tech I bet." Crackshot said.

"Let me go!" Castor bellowed, thrashing helplessly against the shield. 

"Oh no, that's not how this works." I said, stepping forward, wrapping him in my own shield, Lily letting hers drop away. "You're lucky I don't kill you. You managed to make things SO MUCH worse than Venture did." I said coldly. We could hear the doors below open and the sound of the brotherhood knights marching in. 

"TOP FLOOR!" A voice from below bellowed. "IT'S THE ONLY PLACE WITH LIGHT STILL COMING FROM IT!" I realized they were referring to my magic orb. I let it burst, plunging the room into mostly darkness again.

As the soldiers marched up the stairs Lily let her armour snap shut again and she put her hands up, wrapping Castor back in her magic, since it would look more like she was able to generate a shield of some kind. "I think we'll let CB decide what to do with you since she's the one who has suffered the worst." Lily said.

The soldiers marched into the room. "We got a request for aid at this location from The Collective." The lead soldier said, assessing the situation she came face to face with. She reached up and lowered her helmet, revealing a tall woman with tan skin and short pink hair.

"Oh ey." Jack said, putting on his accent again. "Eye'm head of the council." He stepped forward.

"You're Jack MacManus." The soldier said, a note of reverence in his voice.

"That eye am lassie." He said, shaking her hand.

"Star Paladin McKenzie." She said, shaking his hand in return.

"Ahh a fellow Scot, always nice." He laughed.

She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to notice Venture and I sitting off to the side, just quietly looking at the ground.

"A...Are those unicorns?"

"Long story." Brutus said, smiling sheepishly.


//////////


An hour later the humans had finished bringing the Paladin up to speed on everything. How Castor had deceived them, tricked his way into their organization to try and steal computer data on the organization so he could plan an attack on them to shut them down. My ownership in the story changed from Paul to Ruby, explaining all about the 'research facility' she had found Venture and I in a few years earlier. Two guards stood in front of Castor, who had been stripped of his weapons and sat cuffed in a corner. 

"And when you triggered the EMP I made my move with my portable force field and took him out before he knew what happened." Lily explained.

"Well thank you...Fantoma?" The paladin asked and Lily nodded. "Thank you Fantoma." She said again. She looked at Jack. "We need to discuss payment for this, because the Brotherhood isn't in the business of just dropping everything to save civilians."

"Of course." Jack said. "Eye've already thought it out and eye think it's more'n generous. Ye get the facility," He started, "All the robots, all the components, weapons, scrap, computers, everything is yours. In exchange you leave us this section up here for the next week, then it's all yours too. We also want to be allowed to have ow'er techs go through the computers and make copies of every byte of data for ow'er archives."

"Fair enough." She looked at Lily. "I'd like your armour. It's decades ahead of anything I've ever seen."

"It's not so easily surrendered." Lily replied.

"Understandable, alright boys, pack that trash up and lets get out of here with him. We need to go back to base and get official sign off on our new acquisitions."

The guards started to haul Castor to his feet. "Wait." CB said, stepping away from her spot beside Ruby. She walked over to them and looked up at Castor. "Hey asshole," she started, "what did the five fingers say to the face?" Before he could answer she hauled off and belted him across the face, with, of all things, the hand of her severed arm, no muscle tension made it twist kind of like a whip, the impact snapping loudly. Celestia forgive me, despite the situation, I lost it, my laughter echoing around the huge lab, completely blowing my cover in front of the group of Brotherhood troops.

"D-Did you s-see that?" I cackled. "Wh-What did the five fingers s-say t-t-to the face...SLAP! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I fell back howling with laughter.

"Dammit Cane..." Lily sighed, her helmet hissing open and sliding down around her into the collar. "Fine...the armour is all yours...just don't mention the retarded unicorn?" She asked.

"Done." The Paladin said without looking away from me.


//////////


Two days later Venture and I stood side by side, as we put the finishing touches on the rebuilt time machine. We had worked almost two days straight on it. It was nice to be working with him again, we did so well together...More than once someone in the group had commented that it was like watching a single green blur work instead of a yellow one and a blue one. Of course we would run into a problem and argue loudly about how to fix it, in the end always managing to work through it. Finally the machine whined to life and a swirling white disc of light appeared inside the grid of wires and pipes Castor had been powering up.

"Got it!" We both yelled, hoof bumping and turning back to the group. "Who's the best pony? That's right, we're the best pony." I said, grinning at the others.

"You two are morons." Lily said, rolling her eyes, dressed in the simple black dress she had first worn into the human wasteland. "So is this it? We're going to be able to go home?"

"Yup. We studied all of Castors calculations, it seems that even though the portal is only open for a few moments on either side, it's ACTIVE for a few moments here, but for a WEEK in Equestria. So worst case scenario we get back a few days later than expected. Everypony will be worried, but nothing terrible."

"Well actually worst case scenario, we fucked this up and end up 65 million years in the past, or we fall out of temporal existence."

"Well yeah, but the odds of that are in the billions."

"So are we going?" Lily asked.

"I'm ready if you are." Venture nodded. "It's not like I have a ton of stuff." He gestured to the small pack he had gathered together in the last few days, it basically just contained the robotic leg with his pipbuck, a few hard drives with all the data on the time machine, and some food and meds.

"I'm going to miss you guys." CB said, coming over and hugging Lily tightly, which Lily returned, then she turned and wrapped her arm around me. 

I nuzzled against her cheek. "Sorry I'm going to miss show and tell kiddo." I said, smiling sadly.

"Don't worry about it...I found a severed arm, it's WAY gross and I betcha everyone will love it."

"Oh well good, as long as you do well in school, that's all I ask." I laughed. "Oh, actually, one other thing...Go back to The Hub, find Xem, that boy that got attacked by the slavers. I have a feeling he needs a few friends."

"You betcha Mr. Pony." She nodded, wiping away tears before they could fall.

There was a round of hugs and somewhat tearful goodbyes, I was never good at these sorts of things...

"Oh, Brutus...I put this together for you." I pulled a hard drive from my saddlebag and floated it over to him.

"Is it gay porn?" Ruby asked, "because I don't know where you got gay porn, but he has lots already, and if it's just you doing things with your magic...well that's weird and I would be VERY interested in seeing that..."

"Mom, gross." CB said, sticking her tongue out at the other woman.

"It's hacking software, a mixture of human and pony ingenuity. You'll have a much easier time with this than looking for someone to come to the base and try to break encryptions."

"Thanks man." He said, tucking the hard drive into his own pack.

"Jack, Crackshot, I know these aren't technically mine to give, but I don't want them." I floated Paul's Ebony and Ivory out of my pack and held them out to the ghouls. "One for each of you."

"Oh...Thank you laddie." Jack said, taking the guns from my magic grip. "Dibs." He added, looking at Crackshot and grinning stupidly.

"You don't get to dibs a gift you shambling pile of bones." She said, smacking him upside the head and snatching Ebony from his hand.

"Ruby...I'm sorry I don't have anything to give you that is special to me...but I found these and they kind of remind me of you..." I dug into my bag one last time and came out with a stack of comic books, wrapped in clear plastic sleeves, they were yellowed but had survived the centuries well.

She took them from me and looked at them. "Tank Girl?" She asked, looking at the covers one by one. "Never heard of it."

"Well you kind of remind me of her. Maybe a little less crazy than the woman in the comics, but I'd swear Tank Girl was modeled after you if these comics weren't more than 200 years older than you."

"Well, thanks Cane." She said, kissing my horn gently.

"Alright, I guess this is it." Lily said, stepping over to the portal with Venture.

"If we ever master this technology on our side, we'll totally come back and visit." I said. "I'll bring my friends, or maybe you can come see us."

"It's a date." CB nodded.

I joined Lily and my brother in front of the portal.

"There's no place like home." Venture grinned and we walked through the portal.


> Finale
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the light faded we found ourselves back in the big open area of the warehouse. Crackshot sat by the computers, a clipboard at her feet. She looked surprised when the light faded.

“Hey beautiful. Miss us?” I grinned, coming over and hugging her.

“I...but...you...Cane?” She stepped back, looking from me to Lily, still in human form, and Venture, who she, of course, didn't recognize. 

“That's my name, don't wear it out.” I chuckled.

She just looked at me intently with what I could only imagine was intense wonder.

“What?”

With a flash Lily turned back to her normal form and stretched, sighing happily.

“Lily?” Crackshot asked. “Is this really Cane?”

“What? Of course it's really me.” But Crackshot ignored me.

“Yeah, who else would it be?” Lily asked. “You feeling okay you old bag of bones?”

“But...but...” She poked at me a few times and got up and walked out of the room. Lily and I looked at each other and hurried to follow, Venture following us.

She was running full tilt through the building and we followed her the whole way. She finally ran outside, it was raining, no surprise, and she ran around the side of the building. There was a makeshift graveyard now in the field alongside the building. Four rows of eight graves, each a fighter that had been killed in the taking of the facility and town, a stone with their name and cutie mark on it. Some names I knew, others I didn't. She ran to the last row and slid to a stop in front of a grave and started digging furiously at the ground.

“Crackshot stop!” Lily cried, grabbing her in her magic field and pulling her up from the ground.

“But...but...” The ghoul croaked and broke down into tears.

“Guys...” Venture gestured to the grave. My name adorned the top of the grave, my double helix cutie mark under that.

“What? But I'm not dead...” I looked at Crackshot and she just sniffled softly.

“When the portal closed after you guys went through it, Lily and Paul vanished, but you...” She looked at me intently. “You passed through the portal and fell into the pit underneath the gateway, screaming in pain and then you went quiet. By the time we got over to the hole you were already dead...”

“Dead...Really?” Lily asked, looking to the grave. She pressed down into the mud and pulled upward, the slick mud falling away as she pushed it off with her magic until she was holding the body...my body, caked with mud and showing the beginnings of decay...Broken horn, burned flank...dead...

“Oh god...” I whispered, slumping to the ground. “How?”

“The portal...” Venture said, stepping forward finally. “I built it to allow for inter-dimensional travel, using my genetics. It rebuilt my body because it recognized my DNA. It must have been able to extrapolate your DNA using mine as a base, and fixed your injuries and imperfections, but since you already had a body...it left the damaged one behind.” Seriously, how many times did it seem we had to come back to that explanation?

“Oh no...” I shot to my feet. “Ruby and CB?” I asked, looking at the ghoul.

“We need to tell them.” Lily said. “CB must be devastated, and Ruby...shit...she might be dead.”

“Ruby is holed up in one of the kitchens with Brutus and a LOT of booze...CB is in her room with Xem. Neither have come out in days...”

I looked at the others and took off running back inside the building, heading upstairs and into the living area, tearing down the halls, dodging around a few collective workers I recognized and sliding to a stop in front of CB's bedroom, the two indicators in my vision showing they were inside. I knocked gently and saw one of the marks move to the door after a moment. It opened and Xem looked out curiously. He saw me standing there, panting a little from running through the building.

“But...” He just stared at me wide eyed for a moment. “C...CB? Somepony to see you...”

“Tell 'em to go away.” She croaked, her voice obviously beyond strained from crying. He opened the door wider and I saw her laying on the lower of the two bunk beds, facing away from the door, a pillow wrapped tightly in her hooves, stained all over with tears. I looked back at the zebra and realized his coat around his neck and side were matted pretty heavily, probably from CB crying too.

I wasn't sure what to say, or what to do, but Xem pushed me on towards the bed and I walked over and sat down. “Hey...” I said dumbly, reaching out and putting a hoof on her shoulder.

She turned slowly and looked at me silently for a long moment. “D...Daddy?” She whispered and I just nodded. “But...but how?”

“It's a long story?” I asked. She launched herself out of the bed and tackled me to the ground, hitting me in the chest with her forelegs.

“YOU LEFT ME! YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T LEAVE ME!” She yelled, hitting me as hard as she could, tears streaming down her face. “YOU LEFT ME ALONE AFTER YOU SWORE NOT TO!” Her voice cracked and she hesitated.

I took the chance the grab her up in a tight hug. “I'm so sorry sweetie, I never meant to put you through that. If I had known I never would have done it...” I said, hugging her close. All the energy drained from her and she stopped trying to fight me and broke down in tears, burying her face in my chest and just sobbing. I held her tightly until she had again cried herself out.

“D...Don't leave me like that again...” She whispered, looking up at me with big sad eyes.

“Never again.” I nodded. “Do you want to come with me to find Ruby? She still doesn't know I'm back...”

Her eyes went wide and for a moment I could see the sadness in her mind clear up as she realized the implications for Ruby.

“W...We should go find her yeah.” CB nodded. She moved back and sniffled, wiping her eyes and sighing. “Alright, lets go...” She said, moving to the door. “Xem are you coming?”

“Uhh yeah, I kinda want to see how this goes.” He said and I realized he had fought back tears of his own at the reunion. We moved to the door and I hugged him under one leg, pulling him close.

“Don't worry about it, it'll be fine.” I laughed, noogying him before I let him go. He laughed and nodded, moving to walk with us out of the room.

We headed out of the room and down through the facility to the kitchen area. I found Lily's indicator with a few others and headed there quickly. Lily and Brutus were sharing a very passionate kiss and Crackshot and Firebird were looking kind of awkwardly at the roof, Venture standing off to the side, awkward with the situation as a whole.

“Ahem.” CB cleared her throat loudly and everyone looked at us.

“Cane!” Brutus laughed, running over and hugging me tightly.

I pulled away from him and gave him my best dirty look. “Dude...Gay...” Brutus looked at me in shock for a moment, then I burst out laughing and he hugged me again, this time I returned the hug happily. “Where's Ruby?” I asked, pulling away after a moment.

Brutus sighed and gestured to a walk in pantry that he sat a few feet away from. “She's been holed up in there for days...”

I walked over to the door and knocked on the door. “Ruby?” I called.

“FUCK OFF BRUTUS!” She screamed, a glass bottle shattering against the back of the door. CB yelped softly and I looked down to see her beside me.

“What're you doing?”

“We're family, I have to help.” She said seriously.

“Fair enough, just stay behind me.”

“Ruby, I'm coming in.” I called, opening the door slowly, and throwing up my magic field just in time to deflect an empty wild pegasus bottle that was headed straight for my face. It shattered against my shield and I swept it aside.

Ruby was slumped in the corner, her face buried in a pillow, a pile of bottles all around her. I walked over slowly and sat down in front of her, CB sitting beside me. “Ruby...I'm back...I'm okay...” I said softly, reaching out to her.

“NO!” She screamed in horror, pulling away when my hooves touched her. “YOU'RE NOT REAL! YOU'RE DEAD!” She pushed backwards quickly until she was pressed to the wall. “YOU'RE JUST MY MIND FUCKING WITH ME!”

“What about me?” CB asked firmly. “I can see him too!” She reached out and punched me hard in the leg.

“Ow...” I muttered, glaring at the filly, who just grinned a little.

“You're just part of it.” Ruby hissed. “All in my head...” She got very quiet. “I just need more medicine and you'll go away...”

“I think you've had enough medicine.” I said, turning my head and using my magic to sweep away all the bottles before she could reach any of them, but when I turned my head back I saw her pressing the plunger of a needle, which was pressed into her flank, down, injecting herself with it's contents.

“RUBY! WHAT THE FUCK?!” I screamed, grabbing the needle and yanking it away from her. It was Med-X. “CB out!” I said firmly and the filly didn't argue, she backed out of the room quickly. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded.

“You're an illusion, you don't get to tell me what to do.” She said bitterly.

“Ruby he's not a fucking illusion.” Brutus said, walking up beside me. I wasn't about to try to throw him out after the spectacle I had made yelling just now.

“Did you know about these?” I asked, holding the needle up to Brutus, along with two other empties I found among the bottles I had just swept aside.

“No...” He sighed, looking at the pegasus. “When did you start abusing Med-X again?” He asked her seriously.

“Again?” I asked but shook it off. “That can wait...”

“You're not real.” Ruby hissed at me. “I buried you outside with all the others.”

“No, you buried an empty shell. My mind transferred into this new body. Healed and unblemished.”

“Where did you get these?” Brutus asked her, holding up the needles.

“Med bay, where else you stupid ass?”

I was amazed to see that Brutus was clearly just as upset by the needles as I was. He pulled her saddlebags from the floor beside her.

“Take her to bed.” He told me, storming out of the room quietly.

“Don't gotta tell me twice.”

“Lemme alone!” Ruby yelled at me, cowering back.

“I am getting really tired of carrying drunks and drugged out people and ponies around.” I sighed. I lifted her up and put her on my back, using my magic to not just hold her in place but also to restrain her so she couldn't thrash or hit me. When I walked out of the room I saw that most everyone else had left, except for Firebird.

“How is she?” She asked. I turned and showed her the magically bound pegasus.
“Aww geeze Ruby...I don't know why you don't come to us for help with coping?”
Ruby just grunted and turned her head away, hard to the side, biting my ear and yanking hard backwards.
"OW! DAMMIT!" I bucked to the side, losing my focus and she tumbled off my back, scampering back towards the bar in the main room a beer bottle soared off her wings and shattered against my side before I could get my shield up. I was grateful for the armoured barding, but a big chunk of glass cut into my neck.
"RUBY!" Firebird snapped, putting herself between me and the drunk pegasus. "What the fuck?!" She turned and bit the glass, pulling it out of my neck, blood starting to run down my neck and leg. I pulled a stim-pak from my bag and pressed it into my neck and injected myself, sighing as the pain faded and the wound closed.
"What's that?"
"Human world version of a healing potion. I ran out pretty quick, I also left some behind for them to study, they gave me stim-paks to compensate me, only used one I think, I mean we were only gone two days."
"Two days? You were gone a week."
"Long story." I threw my magic back around Ruby and lifted her up and set her on my back again, keeping her firmly muzzled this time. “Come on, lets get you to bed.” I sighed, carrying the drugged pegasus out of the room. I made sure to avoid any other life sign indicators and found my way to the living area. I wandered into the first room I found with a large bed and put her down, removing the magic bindings.
“I'm outta here!” She slurred, pushing herself towards the edge of the bed.
“HEY!” I snapped, feeling all my anger at her boil rapidly to the surface. “Lie the fuck down and go the fuck to sleep! I'm sick of your shit! I'm not a hallucination, I'm not dead and I'm not going to have you wandering around drunk and stoned!”
She whimpered and cowered down on the bed. “Yes sir, sorry sir...”
“Damned straight.” I said, stretching out on the couch and watching her. She had tears streaming down her face and she pressed into the pillows, sobbing softly. I sighed and moved to the bed, grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around her gently, hugging her close. She cried out and bucked wildly underneath me, thrashing to dislodge me and when I fell to the side she kicked me with her back legs, one leg catching my neck, the other impacting hard against my horn, I felt my skull vibrate from the force of the blow. I twisted around and pinned her down with the weight of my body. "RUBY STOP IT!" I yelled over her frantic screaming as she tried helplessly to get out from under me. I was glad the rooms were soundproofed. "Just stop, I'm not going to hurt you!" 
She squirmed for another minute but finally all the energy drained from her and she sank onto the bed. "Please...just make it quick...and be gentle."
"What? Ruby what are you talking about?" But she just pressed her face into the pillows and I felt her rump shift and press up under the blanket, grinding slowly against me.
I realized what she was doing and pulled away from her quickly. "Ruby! I'm your fiancee, I love you! I would never force myself on you like that."

“No...My fiancee is dead,” She said sadly, “And I'll never get to see him again.” She sniffled and fought off fresh tears.

“No I'm not dead.” I replied. “Look, go to sleep, when you've sobered up we can talk and I can be mad at you for the drugs.” 

She buried her face in the pillows and I know she cried for a long time from the way she shook, but eventually she did fall asleep. I laid on the couch and watched her for a long time. All the shit I'd gone through in the human world struggling to make sure we got back here, and I find her abusing drugs. I know she thought I was dead, but still, everypony else was coping without resorting to things like that...

There was a knock on the door and I opened it with my magic without getting up from the couch.

“How is she?” Brutus asked, looking into the room.

“Asleep, finally...she cried for a long time.” I said, looking up at him from the couch. “She thought I was going to rape her...what the fuck happened to her that she thought I was gonna rape her?”

“It's...a long story. A story that's not exactly mine to tell.”

“Brutus I have to know why she is like she is or I'm not sure I can forgive her for this...”

He sighed and nodded slowly. “I...I suppose so...I know the reason but I'm still going to have trouble forgiving her...gimme a few minutes.”

He left and I went back to watching Ruby for a while. He came back after about 15 minutes, carrying five memory orbs in a bucket.

“Here.” He floated the orbs over to me and set them down in front of me. “I gotta warn you...this shit is dark. Darker than anything you've seen in the wasteland so far...it's physically and mentally exhausting, and I can't promise that you'll like what you see.” He took the bucket and set it down beside the couch. “Two people have seen these memories, both of us threw up violently at the end so you'll want this.”

I looked from the orbs to Brutus and back. “What's on these?”

“Remember I told you Ruby went back to the Enclave when she was younger? This is her time there.”

“And it's THAT bad?”

“It's THAT bad.” He nodded. “I had to try and learn memory extraction magic just to pull these out as best I could and bring her back from the brink of suicide...She was worse then than she is now. Just, trust me. She's probably going to be pissed that I even show you.”

“Well I have to know, I can't not know anymore. If we're going to be married we should know everything about each other.”

“Yeah but she'd probably rather have told you herself in her own time.”

“Well I'll take the blame for it. Tell her I forced you to do it.” I floated the orb with a 1 on it up and touched it to my horn. “Let's do this...” With a spark the world fell away.



0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0


So that's the end of Brother From Another Mother...Now go read Alamut's Fallen Star to find out just what Cane see's in the orbs.
> NEW STORY!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW STORY IS UP! GHOSTS OF THE PAST!

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/109629/war-never-changes-ghosts-of-the-past