“The night is long and the path is dark. Look to the sky for one day soon the dawn will come.”

The stark white hallway was just the same as the others. So much so that, while walking down them, I kept having to look back to make sure we hadn’t been walking in a circle this whole time. Maybe it wasn’t the hallway, maybe it was just my stubborn will forcing me to think of anything else but Sky’s death.

With all the pain I’ve felt, all the ponies who’d been lost, losing her didn’t hurt as much as seeing Pallet die. While it might have pained me to see it before, the frozen filly in the snow was nothing more than a memory to me. I think that the shock of how suddenly everything has come down is mostly what’s worn me down. The wasteland has always been bad, and I’m no stranger to death. That numbness to the ugly, dark world had begun to fold itself around me once more. Funny enough, part of me hated it and fought to hold on to all those feelings of suffering.

“Ugh.” I sighed and dragged my hooves until I stopped.

“Everything alright, Storm?” Predious asked, turning around toward me.

“Yeah, just..” I paused. I didn’t need them concerned over me. Not because they didn’t need to know my thoughts, rather that they were largely irrelevant to our job. “Gave myself a headache is all.”

“Just try to take it easy, alright?” Shadow leaned over and gave me a small nudge. I looked up to him and his hope filled eyes. For a pony whose life got turned upside down and is now stranded down in this shithole of a wasteland, he still hasn’t given up his own hope.

“Yeah…” I don’t know how he could do it.

“Come on, ladies.” Tasteless grunted from the open doorway ahead of us. “Y’all can practice making out later.”

“Yeah yeah, don’t get your rivets in a bunch.” Shadow shot back, then continued without missing a beat, “But it doesn’t matter, as your marefriend here would just spend another hour or so straightening you out again.”

Tasteless gave out a genuine laugh and eyed over Shadow as we walked up to her.

“Color me impressed,” She nodded over to me with her now all too familiar toothy grin. “A few more years of work, and you may finally be ready to wear the pants in a relationship with her.”

“Why would I wear pants?” Shadow scrunched his muzzle up with cheeks so flushed that I could probably cook fried hay on from the heat. I brought my hoof to my face both out of amazement that he didn’t get a metaphor, and to hide my own blush from Tasteless. With an annoyed groan, I walked warily past her and into the weapons lab. When I finally did look around, a familiar feeling hit me.

This place was a mess. Not so much as like the other old and forgotten rooms had been, but more so in the fact that nearly every inch of the place was covered with various papers, prototypes, and odd looking defunct equipment. Even the floors weren’t exempt, as stacks of papers and rusted out mechanical components lay just under hoof without any space to allow anything but the most careful hoofsteps. Daddy’s lab back in the other orchard was much like this, and the other doctors there spent hours in what they referred to as ‘organized chaos’.

So of course, everypony simply kicked everything out of the way to get it.

“Have you ever seen a more unique collection?” Gauge was nearly pronking between stations on all four hooves. Her voice squeaked so hard in excitement that I was sure that we’d only get a squee of warning before she exploded from the experience of simply being here.

“Of what?” Tasteless said halfway through as she smashed something fragile under her cyberhoof. “Junk? With how corroded some of this stuff is, it’s hardly worth a look.”

Gauge shook her rocket launcher above her head. “No, stupid. You just have to look in the right...” She went wide eyed as she stared at the wall beside me. “What are those?”

Sitting beside me were a pair of large metal armor cases with glass sides. The cases themselves were nothing unique to the wasteland, but the items inside were quite different to anything I’d ever seen. In each box, sat half a suit of power armor that looked much like the models the steel rangers used, the one on bottom however looked more sleek and plain.

I say half a suit, because past the barrel on both of them, the design became… odd. They were elongated and smooth, like the cone on the pre-war ice cream treats they’d give me as a foal. The tapering shaft ended in a mechanical turbine similar to some of the old torpedos the naval wrecks in Baltimare carried on them. They had designations written in black block letters on the side of them; SHU-B and SHU-B MK2.

“Oh!” Pai’s voice crackled through my pipbuck. “I know what these are!”

“Pai, where have you been?” I tried to speak up and keep her attention, but just like aunt Pinkie, she was too focused on explaining things to listen to anypony else.

“They are listed here as prototype aquatic power armor.” She spoke in such a jerky and oddly paced tone, that I had half a mind to think she was reading this out while her muzzle buried in a book. “Originally constructed as the seapony variant of the standard M.W.T. power armor, the project was canceled due to the home city of the sea pony race being captured by Zebra funded mercenary forces.”

Something in there didn’t quite make sense to me. “How do you capture an underwater city?”

“Wait, what’s a sea pony?” Gauge’s question flew just as far over Pai as my attempts to stop this had. At least I’d figured the quickest way past this was to just let her get the explanations done and over with. Hell, who knows. This place is underwater, and if all else fails, I’m almost positive that those suits are air-tight. Though, I’m sure it won’t come to that.

I let out a sigh with that, not sure if that was a sarcastic thought, or if I just expected shit to go that wrong for me.

“The reports say that the city was taken within a matter of hours.” Pai cheerily continued feeding us the two century old news. “It was a joint operation by Separatist sea serpents who were known to have worked with Zebra’s, and the Hippocampus Autocracy which sided with the zebra’s almost from the war’s start.”

“Hippo-whatnow?” Gauge growled and wrapped her hooves around her head. “Can’t anypony just explain at least one thing to me?”

“Sirens.” Predious snorted with so much disdain that I think I physically felt his hatred radiate through the room. “Technically cousins to the sea pony race, much like the Saddle Arabians are cousins of Ponykind. Though, they are vile, and evil at heart, not unlike the stallion we are chasing down. Their magic was too harmful to anypony nearby them, so the Princesses banished their kind from equestrian waters.”

“They jumped at the chance to take us down in the war.” The major also joined in. “Before that storm up there, this resort was under constant threat of them.” He shook his head. “We never had any incursions, but I did have to pass along a radio report dealing with a merchant vessel being attacked by them.” With a sigh gave a stiff salute. “Poor souls, went down to the depths without a clue what was happening.”

“This is all fascinating and all, but maybe there’s something down here we can actually use.” Predious kicked another pile of rusting components over as he trudged toward the opposite side of the room. The large door that he was approaching looked heavier than the ones to the rooms before. The marker on my EFS displayed that I needed to head through it, but that door was built to keep something out, not in.

“Pai, are you sure that is the right way to go?” I felt it to be better safe than sorry and sound like an idiot, rather than to regret it later.

“Yep!” She chirped. “This room connects to the next wing of the orchard via tunnel.” She paused for a second before my pipbuck emitted a beep. The map now displayed in front of me, the room we were in highlighted. “You are in weapons development and testing, and it says across the way is Terminal and Computer Warfare Testing.”

“And that’s where the next challenge is?” If we had the chance to gear up in here before we left, I sure as hell wanted to take it.

“Yup!” She rang out happily.

That was both good and bad news. While we could indeed get everything we could ever want to defeat whatever challenge Tempest threw at us, a question stuck out at me. In a lab like the next one, what the hell would she challenged us to? It sounded like it could be robots, but I have no idea why she’d have us face another one when Predious took down the first one as easily as he did.

“Hey, sis?” Pai pulled me from my thoughts. “Can I talk to you for a moment… alone?”

“Sure?” I wasn’t sure what needed to be kept secret, but I assumed she had her reasons. Still, the request was odd enough that Predious took a moment from rummaging through junk to shoot me a worried glance. I turned back toward the door, and ducked into the hall. I went a ways back to ensure that we’d get some privacy.

“With the loss of Skyline, I think you need to consider the question of what happens if you lose.” Pai tried to keep her voice sounding cheery and upbeat, but I don’t think anypony could put a positive spin on a statement like that. “Before you interrupt, I know you wouldn’t give up fighting, but if you do…”

“Pai, I can’t lose.” I sighed. “If we die here, the wasteland dies with us.”

“But…!” She tried to interject, but I needed to squash this quick.

“Listen, we aren’t going to lose this.” I almost didn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, but we couldn’t afford to. “The worst that will happen is we reach another stalemate.” I sat down hard and hoofed into my bag, drawing out a cigarette. “Look, I know you mean well, but we’ve got this.”

“And I believe in you, big sis, I really do!” Pai was sounding more doubtful by the moment, and it hurt to hear it in her voice. “I’m not saying you’ll ever lose, but what would it hurt to do a few things just so that evil jerk can’t do even more harm to ponies?”

“What do you mean?” Anything we could do to slow him down, hinder him, or cost him time, then it was worth it.

“There are a lot of things in the weapons lab that can hurt ponies. Many things that should have never even been made.” She paused and gave me a sigh through the pipbuck. “The steel rangers aren’t going to like it, but you need to destroy that lab.”

“I promised them that they could have this facility, Pai.” I didn’t like giving them weapons like these either, but it’s better than the alternative of Filius using them ever. They were too powerful of allies to risk losing like this.

“I’m not saying you destroy the whole orchard!” Pai whined. Her voice was so full of distress, that I wasn’t sure if I said no again, she wouldn’t break down and cry on me. “Just, the weapons. They can keep the medical section, and the computer sciences section.” She was pleading with me now, and I wasn’t sure I could say no. “Please, there’s been enough killing in the wasteland with weapons the likes you’ll find in there.”

“I won’t do it for the wasteland, Pai.” I sighed, breaking like an old support beam. She knew much more than me about any of this, and Sky is no longer here to guide me. “I’ll do it only for you.” She’d more than earned my trust, and it was high time I showed it.

“Thank you, Storm.” She sniffled through the crackling coms. “If you destroy the tunnel just beyond the doorway, the pressure from the water above should destroy the whole room before the emergency bulkhead even has a chance to activate.”

“What about the doorway to the challenge room?” Destroying our only means back out of here was risky enough. “Will that close fast enough?”

“Yes, there might be a bit of water that floods back to you, but it shouldn’t be under enough pressure to cut through the door mechanisms.” Pai’s sniffles dropped away as she continued. “This place was built with emergency measures in place for multiple disasters. Biohazard containment breach, underwater decompression…” She trailed off and lowered her voice. “...Artificial pony malfunction.”

“What?” I hissed. “You mean there’s a way to stop this stupid game, and you didn’t tell me?” For fucks sake! “If this option had any chance to have stopped Tempest before Sky died…”

“No!” Pai snapped. “It can only be activated from the control room. Unless you had come down the entrance that lead there, it wouldn’t have been able to do change what happened.” She sighed. “I didn’t tell you because I’m afraid of what might happen if I did.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” She’d better start talking straight with me. The more riddles she throws at me, the more I had half a mind to just leave the weapons lab standing.

“I had hoped that you could just destroy her servers instead of using it.” Pai once again had the same pleading tone in her voice. “If the steel rangers get ahold of that code, they might be able to use it against me.”

“What?” I get her fear, but from what I understood, she wasn’t able to hold up to somepony hacking anyway. The rangers in the badlands had only a short while to work on her, and she was worried they’d get through then. “I understand the need for self preservation, but why are you so worried about this?”

“Because!” She whined through the pipbuck. “Because if they use it, it’s just over for me.” The pipbuck display and my vision shifted to blue, which was something that hadn’t happened in a while. “It’s not like before. IF somepony tries to use a terminal, they might be able to break me in hours. With this, there’s no wait, no chance for me to fight.” Softly, she started to cry. “How scared would you be without a way to fight back? How long would you last with a gun to your head?”

I got it. No pony would have the will to fight a well armed opponent if they were unarmed, and they wouldn’t last more than a minute. I know this all too well from experience. Thing was I’d always been the mare with the gun until recently.

“You remember how I was in the prison, right?” I held up my pipbuck and stared at it. “You know that I’ve been there.”

“But, it’s not the same!” Pai whimpered to me.

“Bullshit!” I snapped back. “I didn’t give up in there. Yeah, it sucked, and I couldn’t have won a fight if I’d started one.”

“You had a plan!” Pai shouted at me. “You had friends, and resources!”

“And you don’t?” I’d finally begun to see how it looked from the outside in. “Pai, you have friends, and you have time, the best resource of all.” I sighed and pulled myself back up to my hooves. The others would need my help looking for anything usefull, and I would need their help to set everything up. “You are the smartest pony I know, Pai. You helped me plan my escape from the prison, and I know you can find a way to work around their coding.”

“I… I don’t know if I can.” Pai’s voice came across weak and soft.

“I didn’t need anything more than the trust of a few to get out of that place.” I smiled and gave a laugh. “If a dumb mare like me could pull it off, I don’t think there isn’t anything you couldn’t do if you put your mind to it.”

“Really?” She sniffled again. To my relief, my pipvision shifted back to it’s normal green.

“Really.” I nodded and turned back toward the room. “Now, if there’s anything else you need to tell me, make it quick. I’ve got a weapons room to blow up.”

“Shadow, I asked you to help because you have power armor.” I grumbled and grunted. I had both my hooves wrapped around a large wooden crate labeled Caution: Explosives, straining to pull it out from it’s shelf. It had been wedged between a table and some old machine so tightly, that I couldn’t even check to see if it had anything in it at all.

“Oh! Sorry.” He snapped out of whatever daze he was in at my voice. With a heavy thump, he dropped the box of grenades he was carrying. A thick snap from the wooden box preempted the silver apples rolling across the floor. I felt my eye twitch in irritation as we both froze. One of the small explosives rolled across the floor and right up against the ridiculous pile of ordinance that had been stacked by the door. The line of gunpowder that Gauge had poured lead out through the tunnel, and toward the safety of just outside the challenge room. It’s somewhere I really wish I was right now.

“Sorry, again!” He blushed and trotted over to me, carefully avoiding stepping on any of the small, silver death balls. With much more effort than was required, he finally got over to me. “Are you sure you want me to do this?” He eyed the box nervously. “I mean…”

“Just, get the box out of there.” I sighed and took a step back.

The handle might have had enough room for both of my hooves to fit around it, but his power armor made it hard for him to even attempt to get a hold of it. The rebar that was secured to the wood groaned as he pressed against it. The old wood creaked, and sounded like it would give out before he got his hoof in. Again, funny enough, it did.

With a sickening snap, the whole side of the box sheared open. clumps of moldy hay spilled from the opening, smelling of sulphur. Along with the stink, poured a set of candy cane striped tubes. Each one was tipped with a metal pink balloon, and the folding fins on the back gave away that they were rockets.

Twice in as many minutes, we froze and watched as very temperamental ammunition thought about ruining our day. Again, the tubes simply rolled to a stop. Shadow and I both let out a breath we’d been holding. I shot him a glare that I’d hoped he’d remember the next time he picked up so much as an idea from anywhere.

“Not my fault.” He’d kept his eyes looking anywhere but at me until he held the ruined box side up enough to block my angry gaze. Smart move. “I’m feeling we have enough to bring the tunnel down now, don’t you?”

“If we make it out of here alive, remind me to never let you hold anything fragile again.” I grumbled and pointed to the tunnel. “Ever.”

With a short hop, and a quick thrust from his wings, Shadow took to the air. It looked so funny to me, the way he effortlessly flew out of here wearing that bulky armor. Aunt Dashy said she never liked hers, said that it only slowed her down. Seeing Shadow move in that armor gives me new respect for just how amazing Aunt Dashy was.

“Come on already!” Gauge’s voice echoed down the tunnel.

I deftly weaved my way across the volatile floor. I wasn’t anywhere near even understanding equestrian engineering, but I hoped that we had enough bang here to at least get the job done. With one last look around, I double checked if there was any more I could stuff in my bag for later. Besides some interesting looking rounds for Preds minigun, a pair of what Gauge said were ‘stun grenades on buck’, and a single emp grenade for when we found Tempest, there really wasn’t anything I could think to grab. Feeling confident, I stepped out of the room, and into the bright white tunnel.

The long, black line of powder that trailed all the way down to the others gave the hall an odd accent. Everypony was waiting for me down at the other end, thankfully still outside the Challenge room. I had no idea why Tempest didn’t contact us in certain rooms, or get angry that we were taking so long, but I hadn’t been one to refuse a lucky break.

Tasteless chewed on the end of her cigarette, flipping the top of my lighter open and closed in her fetlock. She looked at me as I trotted towards them in a way like I’d wasted her time or something. I had the urge to slow down to a crawl, just to annoy her more, but the longer we took, the closer Filius got to whatever the hell he was looking for.

“What were you doing?” She grumbled and finally lit up her smoke. “Interior decorating?” She took a deep drag off of her smoke before hoofing my lighter back to me. “Just light this shit so we can get out of here.”

“So, do we take cover when she lights it,” The major had been on board for this whole idea, but he seemed to be having second thoughts. “Or do we go when it explodes?”

“Well, if we go before it detonates, and it fails to explode, the AI here can trap us in the room.” Predious was as on point as ever. “So, I hope you don’t mind running for your life.”

“Guys, it’s going to work.” I rolled my eyes and flicked open my lighter. After a few attempts, the wick lit, and I lowered it down toward the gunpowder fuse.

“Wait!” Gauge yelled so abruptly that I snapped my foreleg back and threw my lighter against the wall.

“What?” I sighed and trudged over to my lighter, hoping I didn’t damage it.

“What if Tempest get’s pissed that we blew up part of this place?” She scratched at the tip of her horn as she shrugged. “What do we do if she just tries to kill us?”

“Easy,” I rolled my eyes and relit the wick. “we try to murder her right back. But I’m sure she won’t do that. She’s enjoying these challenges far too much to let it end this quickly.” I carefully lowered my hoof down to the powder again. I froze with the flame just above the line as I thought about this one last time. Shadow had a good point. There were so many weapons in that room that could make a huge difference in the wasteland.

But I gave my word to Pai, so they had to go.

“Wait!” Tasteless shouted out with ear shattering levels of scratchiness in her throat.

“What!” Nearly everypony shouted as we all glared at her. In a move that came as a surprise to exactly none of us, she slowly smirked and giggled. Her giggles grew into obnoxious laughter, which in turn became uncontrollable cackles.

“You should have seen the looks on your faces!” She managed to get out while she was busy rolling around on the floor.

“That’s it.” I growled as I angrily whipped the lighter at the gunpowder. It gave a hiss before the trail ignited. The line burned at a far faster pace than I had anticipated, but it was still agonizingly slow to watch.

“Steady, not yet.” Predious spoke out. Even with his words, I had started to take a few steps back. Recently, explosions haven’t been too kind to me, and I didn’t want to be left with another horrid injury when we were so close to beating Filius.

The line traced closer and closer. It snaked it’s way within ten feet of the pile, then five, then two. The hissing sparks burned their way out of sight, headed for the gunpowder tin that lay at the heart of pile. All of us held our breaths as we waited for the blast.

It never came.

“Really?” Tasteless sighed from her spot on the floor. “What a waste of my time.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Gauge spoke as she took a step forward. She wore a grin across her muzzle that would have sent a raider running for cover. Her magic hefted her new toy up into the air, a candy cane colored balloon rocket floating up to the back of it. “Mind the backblast!” Was all the warning we got before she shoved the rocket home, and pulled the trigger.

The rocket roared down the hallway, missing the pile of explosive by a few feet. In muted horror, I watched as the rocket slammed into the case containing the sea pony power armor. That turns out to have been a mistake, as the explosive’s flash left an afterimage in my eyes when it detonated.

It was fine though, as none of us needed to get up and run for the door. The blast force of the rocket hit me like a motor wagon. I felt as I was picked up and thrown against the heavy door that lead into the computer testing area. My hearing evaporated into a high pitched whine, and my nose smelled nothing but singed coat. As I slid blindly across the floor, I’d wondered if I could kick myself yet for thinking we might have underdone the explosives.

I was stopped quite unceremoniously by sliding against something hard and metallic, slamming my head against it.

As both the stars and the after image in my vision started to clear, a flashing yellow light above the large steel doorway spun quickly in warning. The door had closed quickly, already sitting with a pair of large deadbolts locked through steel rings in the frame. I took a look around me, finding that I hadn’t hit something, but rather had knocked my head against Tasteless’s metal tail. I got a rather unpleasantly close view of her ass before I scrambled and rolled the other way.

Predious sat up from next to me as well, squinting and shaking off his own pain. Gauge lay on the ground beside him, eyes nearly as wide as her smile while she levitated her toy above her, giggling giddily. I found that Shadow was already up on his hooves, and had a hoof extended to the major, who had gotten pinned under Sky’s body. I was surprised that Shadow had recovered so quickly, but figured that it was just another perk of that cheat-suit he wore. Still, he made it look damn good.

After checking myself over quickly for grievous wounds, I felt safe to relax. Curious, I pulled up my pipbuck and navigated to the map section. I found the room where we currently were, and looked over to where we’d been. Both the tunnel and the weapons cache room had changed from solid lines, to dotted lines. I’d figured that if a dotted limb on the health screen ment broken limb, then a dotted map ment it was an inaccessible room. Even as I looked at it, more of the dotted line rooms replaced sections of the other part of the orchard.

A hoof tapped against my shoulder and startled me. I turned to find Gauge’s beaming smile hanging above me. She spoke in muffled tones that I couldn’t understand. She looked like she repeated the words a few more times, but I simply shrugged and pointed my hooves at my ears.

She looked to come to a realization and held up a hoof to me. Slowly, she levitated her rocket launcher over and spun it so I could see the back of it. She pointed at it and said something I once again couldn’t fucking hear. She waited for a response I couldn’t give before pointing to my bag, and then to the back of her launcher.

It was about then I’d figured that she was asking if I had any more ammo for her. If I thought she could at all hear me, I’d have explained that the only ammo I saw was in the crate Shadow had torn open. Since I couldn’t do that, I simply nodded and pointed right at the sealed door.

The color bled from her face, and the smile left her muzzle as she turned to look. It was an odd thing to see in complete silence. I watched as the last ounce of hope to fire that deathtrap again left her. It was replaced by confusion, as she turned to me with uncertain eyes that probably begged to ask me why I’d ruined all of her fun. Then that too was replaced by the understanding of the situation, and the acceptance of defeat. With an uncaring sigh, she simply strapped the rocket launcher too her and sat down hard.

But hey, for once one of my plans had gone right. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but we did destroy the weapons room. Sure, we could have helped a lot of ponies with those things, but some part of me knew that I needed to heed the warnings of others. Sky told me of the horrible weapons that she and her brother had found in the orchards, and the pain they had caused. I couldn’t help but think she’s out there somewhere, with a smile on her muzzle, knowing that those things could never hurt anypony again.

Now, if the same could just be said about Filius, I might just have myself the start of a good day.