“The shepherd’s lost and his home is far. Keep to the stars, The dawn will come”

For all we’d been through, it was lucky for us to find an emergency medical cabinet on the wall that was still stocked. Unfortunately, it only had a single health potion in it. For a moment, I was perplexed at how this cabinet was supposed to have helped in any emergency, when a single potion could barely handle one gunshot wound. There was room in here for a hundred potions, and at the very least they could have left us some gause. I guess it made sense to me, with a facility this big and undoubtedly as expensive as it was, something in the budget had to give.

We passed around the potion, each using just the slightest amount to fix our ears. The first thing we’d all heard once our hearing had returned, was an unnatural silence. At the very least, I’d expected Tempest of be ranting and raving over my spectacularly destructive display, but she too was absent. I should have been relieved at our lucky break, but the odd stillness only served to unnerve me.

The room itself looked much like the weapons research room, except that it was large like the other warehouse rooms had been. There were various discarded terminal components, scrap wires, vacuum tubes, and various electronic do-dads scattered around in place of the rusting guns and junk we’d seen back in the other room. If anything, this room had an abundance of paper, and they looked to have wanted to use every sheet available to them. Lines and lines of unintelligible symbols and numbers ran over every page I could see. Some of the papers were even still stuck half printed out of the dormant machines.

“It’s official. I’m bored.” Tasteless sighed as she pushed a stack of paper over onto the floor.

“Already?” Gauge still had a ridiculously wide smile across her muzzle from the blast, and she cradled her rocket launcher close to her like it was a foal.

“Something blew up not two minutes ago,” Predious stepped over to me and took to looking over some of the old machines. “I would expect that it would have sated you for quite some time.”

“Yeah, that time was two minutes,” She rolled her eyes, put a hoof against one of the old machines, and tipped it over. With a resounding crash, the old metal machine burst at it’s rusted seams and spilled a myriad of broken components at her hooves. “and now I’m bored again.”

“You’re incorrigible.” Predious simply grunted.

“Seriously, you’d rather deal with more games?” Shadow spat at her in disgust. “Would you be more ‘entertained’ if another innocent pony died down here?” He kicked at a stack of papers behind him in his anger. The force of the power armor kick caused the stack to explode into a shower of yellowed paper behind him. “You sicken me.”

I’d been about to interject with how we should actually look for a way out of here, when the loudspeakers on the wall crackled.

“Did somepony mention another challenge.” Tempest’s voice sounded off. The pitch and tone of some of her words jumped wildly as she spoke. From the way it did, the illusion that she could have possibly been a pony fell away. What was left was the sound of automation, and the cold calculating logic of a machine. “Well, if you insist on having another…”

“Look what you did, featherhead.” Tasteless sighed and sat down, shooting an annoyed look to shadow.

“What I did?” He snapped out in a voice that sent a shiver down my spine.

With a thick snap, every terminal in the room started up with a unified whine. The whine dropped off as the dust coated screens flickered and brightened, the humming that they filled the room with feeling like they filled the air itself with power. The suddenness of it had caught us all off guard, but as the odd silence from everypony gripped the room again, I’d wondered just what Tempest was up to. That had been when a new sharp whine emitted from behind me.

“What the hell!” Gauge shouted and pulled our attentions to her. Sparks and smoke shot from every joint in her cybernetic leg, the limb seemingly starting to move on it’s own. “Shit, shit, shit!” She whined and tried to maintain her balance on her other hooves as her horn glowed brightly. She wrapped her leg in her magic, focusing it on the points she’d used to remove it before. “Fuck, why won’t you come off!”

“I guess you need me to explain this challenge.” Tempest’s cold and uncaring voice came over the speakers again. “The Ministry of Image told the public that the zebra nation was a barbaric and uncivilized place, but unknown to many, they employed genius scientists on par with Ministry head Twilight Sparkle. More than a fair share of these few worked as terminal coders, writing codes and developing technology to counteract equestria’s newest technological front in the war.”

With a snap, gauge’s cyberlimb whipped itself in a direction it hadn’t been designed to torque. Part of her hoof twisted and showered parts onto the floor as the mechanisms inside died from the stresses on them.

“See, cyber warfare had always been the zebras forte. Their robotics and mechanical skills were unmatched by us early on, but they never expected us to catch on so quick.” Tempest continued talking as Gauge fruitlessly tried to get her hoof under control. “With the idea that we might be able to match them at their own level of mechanical sophistication, they understood that we must have gotten our hooves on some of their tech.” She paused at nearly the same time gauge’s leg let out a whine and nearly sheared itself off at another joint. “Of course, you already know this, don’t you?”

“Make it stop!” Gauge cried out. She looked around to us for help. With the way her leg wildly moved, none of us could get close.

“They started to develop special programs that would fell even their own machines,” Tempest’s voice grew more disgusted as she talked. “An ugly idea that soon found it’s way into the base code of every machine they built with the intention of finding it’s way into our systems. A virus that would slowly build up a charge in the machine, causing it to rip itself apart before terminating itself in a spectacular fashion.” She again gave a small, heartless laugh. “Of course, I kept it contained for a special occasion such as this.”

“Charge?” Tasteless spoke up with teary eyes. “How?” As she spoke, she hadn’t once looked away from Gauge. I could see the pain written across her muzzle. She may be a bitch, but even a pony such as her could see that Gauge didn’t deserve this.

“In the next three minutes, the power system of that cybernetic limb will overload and release its stored energy. When that time is up, it will discharge through the outlet it is connected to.” Tempest sighed and spoke to Tasteless like she would a foal. “The challenge for you is simple. Purge the virus before it stops her heart.”

“But…” Tasteless choked on her words as Gauge simply cried and focused her magic around her leg. “I can’t fucking do that! I don’t know the first thing about terminals!”

“Of course you don’t.” Tempest’s voice faltered and skipped into a manic laugh. “That’s why I made it your challenge!”

“Tasteless…” Gauge whined. “You have to help.” She looked up at her with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t want too-” The snap of her leg cut her off, the metal limb twisted and hit her across the muzzle hard. She slumped over onto the floor in unconsciousness, her leg still whipping about uncontrollably.

“Fuck!” Tasteless screamed and galloped to her. “Don’t just fucking stand there, you assholes!”

Out of all of us, only Predious moved. He didn’t move toward her, but away. Calmly, and with a coldness that had only come from Tempest herself, he seemed to busy himself with scavenging the room.

“Fine! I’ll save her on my own!” Tasteless growled. She reached out for the limb, seeking to grab it with her own cyberhoof. Several times she tried, each attempt was thwarted when Gauge’s limb painfully crunched against Tasteless’s. Undeterred, she still tried up until a heavy swing from the out of control limb landed square on her chest, rending the snap of bone in our ears. Tasteless whimpered in pain and backed off, looking to make one last attempt. However, it was too late, and the unthinkable happened.

With a short whine, the cyberlimb sparked and exploded at the joint it connected to Gauge. She convulsed as it did, and her horn sparked as the magical energy coursed through her. Then, as it had been before, every terminal in the room shut off, and everything fell silent again. With a hiss, the door to the hallway opened up. The challenge was over.

“No.” Tasteless whined through soft sobs. “Not you.” She pushed herself through the pain in her chest and collapsed onto Gauge. “Wake up.” She spat out in anger. “Wake the fuck up!”

“Tasteless, she’s gone.” I couldn’t do anything, none of us could.

“Fuck you!” She hissed and shot glance that I’d wished would just burn right through me. “You did nothing to help her! She didn’t need to die!”

The sound of hoofsteps quickly trotting past me pulled my gaze to Predious. He held a bundle of junk in his magic, and wore the most stern look I’d ever seen across his muzzle. I was about to ask what he was doing when without warning, he spun around and bucked Tasteless right in the head. She recoiled and slid across the floor with a pained yell, slamming against one of the research tables.

“Everypony stand back!” Predious yelled before he took his amalgamation of junk, and pressed it down against Gauge. A new whine filled the air, this time coming from his object. With a snap of it’s own, it made Gauge’s body convulse. Still, she say unmoving on the floor. “Come on, work.” His horn flashed again, and the whine returned. Another snap from the object, and again her body moved.

“Pred,” I forced myself to say.

“Stay clear!” He snapped at me and worked his makeshift device again. This time when Gauge convulsed, her eyes snapped open. She gave a wheezing inhale that ended in scream when he pulled the device from her. With a sigh, Predious haphazardly tossed the junk device to the side and gave me an exhausted look. I don’t know how he knew to do something like that, but I’m not going to lie, I wanted to kiss him in that moment.

“How dare you interfere.” Tempest seethed through the speakers, catching us all off guard. “I already gave you your only warning, consider our deal off.”

“No, by your own rules, the challenge was over by the death of a trespasser.” Predious snarled and turned around in place. “You declared the challenge over by opening the door. What we do after that is outside of the bounds of our agreement.”

“You have no authority over me.” Tempest’s wavering voice was only getting worse as she spoke. “You break into my facility, ruin my experiments, and destroy my home to distract me from the others intruding into this facility. Now you want to tell me how to follow my rules? We are done. Once I deal with the others, I’ll...”

Her voice cut out sharply, and the lights in the room started to flicker. For a moment, we were dropped into darkness before everything came back on. If not for Gauge and Tasteless’s soft sob filled embrace, we would have found ourselves in silence yet again.

The soft crackle from the speakers on the walls preempted another chill down my spine. What would she do now that we weren’t protected by a deal? Would she sick the robots from the other wings on us, or was there something even worse headed our way?

“This is Palladin Cheese,” The voice of that asshole hadn’t been one I’d expected, but it was a welcome surprise. “We’ve secured the control room and managed to use the override on both the lockdown and the AI.” He paused for a moment, and a collective sigh of relief came from everypony. “But we’re not out of hot water yet, and that’s not a phrase I’m using lightly. Get to the control room, A.S.A.P.”

The light chatter between us as we traveled the immensely bright white halls had been a good distraction from the silence that somehow permeated this whole place. As scary as it was at the other orchard, at least the ghosts of the dead had kept me on edge and alert. This place felt like it wanted to hold on to every sound like it were a pre-war secret, keeping it hidden from our prying ears as we walked past the decaying projects of years past.

Tasteless mostly whispered reassuring words into Gauge’s ear, helping to keep her distracted from the loss of her leg. Of course, the leg in question bore little resemblance to the metal appendage it once had. Blackened wires and melted components poked through every joint with an aggression shared only by the weeds that sprouted in cracked pavement. The leg itself was shaped more like an old world pretzel, having twisted and curled around it’s base in an odd fashion.

“Are you alright?” Predious whispered to me from my side. The look I got from him when I turned to answer was much more sincere than I’d expected from him.

“Honestly, I’m not sure I can answer that anymore.” I sighed and dragged my hooves. We let the others get ahead of us a bit before I continued. “Back there, I froze up. Gauge is only alive because you did what none of us could, and acted.” I shook my head. “I know I’m supposed to be some sort of leader for you all, but I never once thought about what that really meant.”

“Nopony acted because nopony else knew what to do.” He gave me a small nudge as we walked. “You know how long I’ve survived out there. There’s a good reason you found me reading a book. Knowledge is power, and I simply applied it in the right way back there.”

“But what happens when it’s you on the floor like that?” I wanted to believe that it would never come to that, but between losing Sky, and almost losing Gauge, I just couldn’t afford to think like that anymore.

“I fully expect to die.” He gave a light chuckle. When I turned to him in horror, he held his hoof out to keep me from talking. “As some pony in charge, you have to know that sometimes, there won’t be any way to solve a problem at all.”

“No, I refuse to lose hope.” I wanted to tell him about what the elements had shown me, but we’d started to fall behind the others. I didn’t want us to be too far back on the off chance that another challenge popped up, so we both moved up to a canter.

“It’s not that you should lose hope, more that you should accept the inevitability of some outcomes.” He smiled and pointed his hoof toward the others. “Mistakes and all, if you were to tell them definitively, that a problem isn’t worth their effort to solve, they’d listen.” He tossed his head back and forth as he spoke, seeming more cheery than usual. “All the same, they’d listen if you said that a pony wasn’t worth the effort to save. Make no mistake, there will be a point where you’ll have to make that call. It might not be today, or tomorrow, but as somepony who leads, you will have to make that call.”

The others had all stopped up ahead at another slab door. Unlike the ones we’d passed before, this one sat at the complete end of the white hall. In large black letters, the words Orchard Command and Control sat pristinely painted across the steel door. Without hesitation, I hit the control panel that sat next to it on the wall, and waited as it lifted out of the way. A smaller bulkhead door sat in front of us, and without much trouble, I twisted the handle, opened it, and stepped inside.

“Mi amore, I am so glad you are safe.” A smug striped muzzle met my eyes as we trotted into the control room. Ficha was about the most unexpected thing about this place. Having done my fair share of exploring as a Filly, I knew what an orchard Control room looked like. Dozens of screens displaying all sorts of information flashed across the walls around us, and a main control board with more buttons on it than anywhere else in the wasteland. Nothing out of the ordinary to me so long as you dismiss the three pony skeletons haphazardly brushed under the console by the power armored hooves of the rangers manning the board. What I hadn’t expected to see, were the yellow caution lights on the walls to be actively spinning. Though, then again, I did flood an entire wing of this place…

“Yeah, we’re alive too.” Pred’s comment pushed the smug smile from Ficha’s muzzle, and tightened it into an egotistical grin.

“Yes, but nopony kills the hired help.” He muttered just under his breath.

“Ficha, you have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing down here, or I swear to Celestia…” I wasn’t in the mood for his shit.

“Glad you could all make it.” Cottage called from the control board. His suit gave out a sharp hiss as he unsealed his helmet and took it off. I liked the rangers much better without their soulless looking helmets on. Not only did it make it easier to judge their emotions, but if it came to it, it was the only time I could ever take one of those impenetrable assholes down. “Your striped friend here comes quite in handy for opening sealed doors.” He shot a glance over his shoulder at us. “Unfortunately, it’s those same doors that are going to kill us all very shortly if we don’t do something.”

“Where is my father?” Gauge spoke up weakly from behind me. “He was with you before.” Tasteless had carried her across her back due to the twisted wreck that was her cyber leg being completely unusable.

“One moment.” Cottage gave a few twists and toggles to some of the controls, making one of the monitors flicker and change it’s display. When the image cleared up, it came across as if it were in a fish eye lens. It took me a moment to understand that the room in the image was actually circular, and the odd shine in it came from the other side of a clear glass bubble that encapsulated it. At one section of the controls, was Fruit Cup. After a moment, he walked up to the camera and flashed a quick smile before flipping a switch.

“Hey there, Gauge.” His voice came through the intercom on the console Cheese was at. “You see that blur behind me?” He nearly giggled as he spoke. “Watch this.”

He twisted a knob next to him slowly. An odd crackling came through the mic as he did, and the shine in the background started to change shape. Slowly, it contorted and flattened, resolving into a blob. The blob in turn resolved to a wriggling mass, then into the rough shape of a pony. With a solid click, the shine changed into the racing form of a translucent equine.

“That, everypony, is a Windego. Probably the last of it’s unmutated kind in the wasteland!” He nearly squealed in joy as the monster galloped endlessly around the control chamber. With that bit over with, he leaned down and looked right at the camera. “Now, I hope you’re alright down there.”

“Not really.” Gauge sighed and lifted the metal mess that was her leg toward the screen. “We lost Sky.” She paused as his smile faded. “And I broke your leg. I’m sorry.” She seemed to be a bit apprehensive that it wasn’t all that we’d almost lost back there, but she can tell him about what happened on her own time. Assuming we survive this, that is.

Fruit frowned. “Is the rest of you..?” He was interrupted by a rapid set of beeps on the console next to him. After looking over several instruments, he walked back over to the camera with a worried look. “That was another power fluctuation. Are you sure you activated the cool down on those reactors, Cottage?”

“Yes, it seemed that the AI has overridden the overrides.” He shuffled himself down to the other end of the console and looked over a few gauges. “If we don’t do something to stop this, it’s going to build up to unstable levels here in just a few minutes.”

“What seems to be the problem?” Predious stepped up beside Cottage and gave the controls a look over for himself.

“Right before I locked the AI out of the comand system, it seems that it had enough time to start some sort of emergency vent of the Resort’s archano-reactors.” Cottage pointed to gauges with odd symbols that I couldn’t understand, nor had any idea what they did. “In about three minutes, superheated steam from the reactors saturated with magical radiation will vent into the elevator shaft we came down. It wouldn’t be so much of an issue if the lockdown hadn’t sealed the rest of the hotel off above us. There isn’t anywhere for the steam to go but down here.”

“Yeah, I’m no expert, but that sounds bad.” Shadow stretched his wings nervously. “So what do we do to stop it?”

“That’s just it, I’m stumped.” Cottage sighed and leaned closer to the controls, skimming his muzzle just over the top of them as he looked over each one again. “We can’t shut them down, the failsafes to abort the vent are locked. And, unless you can get to the manual control valves on each of the six reactors in the next sixty seconds, you won’t be able to prevent the vent in time.”

We all sat in silent thought for a few moments. There had to be another way to shut them down. The Goddesses were really trying to break my hopes more than ever now, and I just wasn’t having it anymore. This shit was really unfair, and if we get out of this, I was going to dismantle Tempest in the most painful way possible.

“I…” Fruit Cup came over the intercom hesitantly. “I have an idea.”

Cottage hit a few buttons on the console. With a collective flicker, the whole bank of monitors switched images, combining their screens to form one large screen of the Windego control chamber.

“Well, now would be the time to say it then!” Cottage grumbled and worked over more controls.

Amidst all the alarms, we could see Fruit Cup on the big screen nervously rub at his mane. “There is a procedure for something like this written up over here. There are a secondary set of vents that were to be used if the Windego ever got out of their control.” It made sense, seeing as Pai’s orchard had a similar failsafe planned out.

He hoofed a book closer to him and flipped it open. He hoofed through a few pages before stopping and looking right into the camera “If I can vent the radiation into windigo's chamber, I can keep it from spreading through the island. We’ll lose the storm generator for good, but the rest of the Resort will be safe.”

“You can’t do that,” Predious shouted at him, catching most of us by surprise. “You’ll boil alive in there from that much radiation!”

“I’m sorry, but your out of time, and there’s no other way.” He spoke as he turned and furiously worked over the controls. The roar of the windigo overtook the sound of his hooves through the intercom. We could see it, starting to circle closer the glass chamber that sat in the center of the sphere. I didn’t know if it knew what was happening or not, but I could feel myself grow colder as I watched it.

“Opening emergency spell reactor vent system.” He threw a short lever that caused a loud clang to resonate through the entire orchard around us. “System open.”

“Dad, no!” Gauge cried out, struggling to climb down from Tasteless. She hadn’t gotten far when Tasteless wrapped her hooves around her tightly, holding her in place. Gauge simply screamed and flailed against the embrace. “You can’t do this!”

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m not afraid.” He chuckled through the video feed. Of all of us in the control room, I don’t think a single one of us believed him. “You and your brother need to take care of your mother from now on, alright?”

“Don’t throw your life away!” Predious snapped into the microphone. “There has to be another way.” In an almost annoyed agreement, the windigo roared out and slammed itself against the glass chamber. Fruit jumped in fear, but quickly regained his composure and went back to frantically working the controls.

“Overriding the first of the reactor core vents.” He growled and slammed his hoof through a glass cover on the control panel. With a grunt, he threw the paddle, and a loud hiss ran around us through the walls. On the screen, a large white plume grew outside the chamber. The Windigo screamed in pain, flailing wildly as it circled the chamber.

“No!” Gauge cried out, reaching for the screen. “Dad, you can’t!”

“Overriding the second set of core vents.” Fruit cup whined as he reached over and threw up the second paddle. Another hiss, followed by even more white steam on the screen showed the effects of it. Fruit Cup stumbled back and covered his ears as the Windigo screeched again. It slammed itself against the glass containment case again and again. It was hard to tell, but it blurred as it galloped faster than even before.

With heavy breaths, Fruit stepped up to the control panel again. We could see the thick lines of sweat running down his muzzle, and just behind him the reflection on the glass shifted. The glare I’d seen before on the glass had returned and expanded. The area outside the chamber now looked as much a raging tempest as the storm that surrounded the island.

“Chamber temperature… one thirty and rising.” He grunted out, lifting his hoof to wipe away the sweat. “Reactor core at fifty percent capacity and falling. Just a little bit more.” He had just the faintest sign of a grin on his face as he spoke, glancing over to the camera. “Throwing the third switch.”

“No dad, no…” Gauge whimpered as she simply collapsed and cried. “Please, come back to me.”

“Fruit, you’ve bought us enough time to figure something out.” Predious panted heavily through his own tears. He turned around and glared at me. “Tell him it’s enough!” He turned toward Cottage next. “Do something! Get him out of there!”

“Is it enough time?” I asked him through a quivering muzzle. For all the talk Pred had given me on the way here, this was something that none of us could fix. It hadn’t even been my call to make, and yet another pony was dying in front of me. I cursed the Goddesses and the elements for his pain, but I would not let this break me. I couldn’t.

“Sorry, all. This was a one way trip for me.” Fruit cried out as he threw the next paddle. Another hiss, and another pained cry from the Windigo. This time, the agonized screams of Fruit joined in as he slumped over the controls. When he pushed himself up, his skin was mottled and bleeding wounds were literally opening up before our very eyes. “Please, make sure my family makes it through this.”

It was hard to even bring myself to speak, and when I did, all I could get out was a hushed, “I will”. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I couldn’t do more than watch Fruit Cup give his life to save everypony. It wasn’t even a choice for him, it was simply necessary.

In the video feed, we watched as the glass windows deformed under the intense heat and winds. There was a terrible noise that came through the speakers, and what looked like part of the walkway punched through the window, tearing it away. The raging wind came in and howled over the PA. The control room was immediately shrouded in a burning cloud of obscuring steam.

Momentarily, there was a break in the cloud. It was just enough to see Fruit propped against the control panel, hooves on the last switch. His skin was sloughing off his body, and as he turned to look at the camera, his eyes boiled and burst. He mouthed something lost to the roaring noise, before lifting with all the strength he had left as the cloud enveloped him once more.

The piercing hiss that echoed through the walls was a sound I don’t think that I’ll ever forget after today. The camera feed and audio from the chamber cut out abruptly as they melted from the heat. Even from this far down, we could hear the final death throes of the windigo as it was purged in a bath of magical radiation, right alongside one of the bravest ponies I’ll ever have known. My heart ached, my head throbbed, and as quickly as it began, it was over. Then, it was nothing but silence.

The quiet of this place was something I’d really started to hate the most about this wretched orchard. I hated it even more than the fact that we’d lost two ponies down here, I hated to think that we still needed find out and stop Filius from getting whatever it was he wanted. The sooner we could do that, the faster we’d leave this quiet hellhole to rot for the rest of time.