In the end I told Maul to wait outside and wait until he heard the gunshot before coming in and joining the massacre. I still needed some information from the scientists and that meant keeping the target alive long enough to make sure they gave up their secrets. In this case it was their own director of science that had my information, the same pony who had made Maul, understandably he wanted Red dead and vice versa. The only problem with Red wanting Maul dead was that I wasn't on his side, that and I wasn't capable or willing to murder a fellow experiment when I had a perfectly logical alternative...

Alternative... Right Aria, keep telling yourself that, not like you had some well deserved grudge against people who experimented on others lives. Oh right, I did. I snorted before opening the dirty half broken door, getting more than a few surprised looks from the Ghoul-scientist-ponies inside. Red however had his jaw drop, disbelief filled the room. Great, thanks for the vote of confidence, I noted it as I spoke, "It's done."

"Ah, Thank you." Red began, his voice was still ever so sickeningly calm despite his actual emotions. It was unamusing to watch the stallion begin to ramble on about how good it was but I gave him his minute, I could see the uneasiness now, sliding off him like a wave of heat.

"Your monster is dead as well." I lied casually, drawing an surge of relief from the stallion and the others, "Your part of the deal."

"Ah, right." The self proclaimed scientist began again, rambling off on another long winded speech about how he was grateful but I ignored it for the most part for another minute, the explosions sounded closer so I made him get on with it. Much to the misguided relief of his companions.

"Just give me the information on your...Projects..." I said with distaste and another of the zombies nodded and moved forward with a small disc, a note in the form of a holotape, I realized, and I had to ask Red just one more question before my trigger finger made it's final decision. As the disc downloaded, I asked him, "What did SIM-HB stand for anyway?"

Red spoke again his voice reluctant if not disappointed, "It was a variety of projects the Ministries of Luna's old government we had intended to fuse together... Sadly however it was incomplete when the Test subject escaped and later on you know what happened if you've been down there."

I let out a deep breath at the words he had said, test subject, not pony. Not...Pony, "Well Mr. Delicious." I told him, "I think this concludes our business." He grinned until it was too late as my shotgun went up and with S.A.T.S. fired several rounds into the heads of the only armed guards in the room.

Shock overtook their features, and I noted that Maul was incoming, I timed my words as Red shouted, "WHY?!"

"Justice for Maul." I stated simply, "And Maul for Justice."

I thought it was a clever play on words at the time when the steel armored pony broke through the wall, ignoring the perfectly good door next to him. Talk about a dramatic entrance. Within seconds Maul had released a large portion of his anger down upon most of the remaining scientists stopping for a moment on Red, holding the now struggling panicked scientist by the throat with one of his tentacle-claw...Thingys... Seriously needed a name for them. Battle-Tentacles? Stretchy-Claws? I liked the former one better.

"W-wait!" Red gasped around the withering claw that was pinning him against a wall, and Maul obliged only to approach him until each others faces were only inches away.

Though I knew from my observation less than an hour ago that he could easily extend his jaw and rip off the scientist's face, "Humor me." Maul replied I could swear the lights from his visor narrowed at the ghoul, no doubt already recognizing him despite the mutated horrifying looking rotting flesh.

"you're... Incomplete!" The ghoul-doctor wheezed and I could see that Maul's claw was biting deeper into the zombies flesh as Maul squeezed tighter.

Maul didn't move further but instead replied with a gravely voice that dripped venom, "You mutant scum. Just like you to pull a trick like that. It won't help you though, nothing will now." Then his battle-claw twisted, and the Ghouls head bent at an unnatural angle with a loud snap. Before my eyes the zombie's head came off with a sickening sound of tearing flesh and fell to the ground, followed by the body as it became no longer supported by the battle-claw of the battle-tentacle attached to the battle-pony-armor of the battle-pony. I was having too much fun with that, though the sight of it was still able to twist my gut with disgust as Maul proceeded to rip off the rest of the limbs of his now deceased torturer.

I looked away and exited the room quietly, letting Maul vent his stress and anger by reducing the glowing Ghoul into glowing goop. I took the opportunity to examine the other rooms and not think about the actions of brutality that the scientists had just received. They deserved it, but I didn't like that I had acted as both judge and jury, and Maul as executioner. An military soldier experiment shouldn't be a judge but it was just so plain obvious that they were guilty. Maul was clear evidence of that.

I distracted myself with the first intact room I came across. The sign read Project EFS II. and inside it was a room full of small electronic boxes. Judging from the notes in my pipbuck it was some sort of device meant for heavy war machines like tanks and vertibucks or robots. In other words a targeting talisman that told you who was trying to kill you and who wasn't. I took a few, if only for their worth in caps. It wasn't like my pipbuck would be able to use the large things. Despite how light they were. I exited the room only to hear a loud bang and see a Mister Handy go flying past the doorway and into the end of the hallway in pieces. My gaze lingered on the smoking wreck for a second before turning my gaze back to where it had come from.

It was an orange painted sentry bot. My heart skipped a beat as I ducked back into the room as it noticed me. It fired it's Gatling laser while I drawed Ambush under cover, Too many of these dang things had metal armor and I would need the high caliber gun to pierce this royal jerk. I was glad for the distraction but this was a tad much for my other weapons. I loaded my gun and when there was a brief lull in the combat when the sentry reloaded I fell out of cover and fell into the zenn of S.A.T.S. and took aim at it's faceplate.

I fired twice breaking the faceplate and blinding the death spewing robot, didn't stop it from firing a missile down the hallway though. Wildly it had somehow managed to reduce the opposite wall into rubble and gather the attention of the inhabitant on the other side of the wall. I was preparing to fire a third shot for it's rocket firing arm when my favorite power armored experiment came rushing past me with an monstrous yell that was half pony, half something else. Still deep and masculine as anything I've ever heard.

I almost pitied the poor robot as Maul crashed into it. He didn't even use his tentacles as his mouth extended once again from under the helmet and bit into the poor thing while his hooves punched large dents into it, jamming both guns with his front hooves bending it out of shape. With a groan from the sentry its head came off with an jagged tear. The bot stopped moving and I breathed a sigh of relief while Maul spat its head out. Apparently metal wasn't to his taste.

"Thanks." I told him in my usual quiet voice while I rolled into the next room.

He looked back and then took a double take as though he had just noticed me, "Don't." He rumbled, "It fired upon me, and it died as a result." I deadpanned as he went off in search for another. Judging from the boom and the roar of rage that followed soon after he found another of the robots. The eyes in my sockets rolled a full circle before I got back to looting the place, whatever rooms weren't empty or decayed to the point their contents were dead I emptied their contents into my bags. I recognized one project containing a few metal discs similar to the ones that Maul had embedded into his armor. Except these weren't in armor. That and there was only one of them. With a note on the side saying that the others had been spread out for study for some reason.

The rest I didn't recognize but I threw into my bag anyway, a small box, a gun of some sort, and, ahah! Project MISS. It was surprisingly small even for their standards. Sitting on it's own pedestal in a glass case was the smallest dang chip I had ever seen. Quickly I took it out of it's case and put it in my pocket before leaving to go find Maul, and hopefully Cait or Scrapyard. I hadn't stopped wondering what had happened to the two of them until I heard static from long worn intercom and a robotic voice started rambling, "Self-destruct-or-or-or-or-der innnnnniiittattteeeddddddd... All personal clear blast radius within five five five five five five."

Great, just great. Cait's voice also spoke on the intercom, albeit it was heavily influenced by static, "Hey, hey, hey! stop overreacting I was just trying to access a terminal!" Was he arguing with a machine? Fantastic. I began to run towards the stairs. Within a minute Maul had caught up to me and was wiping what I presumed was wiring and circuits from his mouth, "Where we going?" He asked me, shocking me with his obliviousness.

"Heard the intercom?" I told him, getting a nod, " 'Self-Destruct' usually means the place is going to explode." I told him, I wasn't a genius but I had paid attention to my classes back in the stable. Because usually if you hadn't you were destined to lose in the Testing Grounds. Losing had also meant death, which was something I so far hadn't experienced, or was ever going to want to. Maul merely tilted his head and wondered if the blast would kill him. Considering how a missile from the sentry bot and the extra laser rounds from another sentry bot had barely covered the gore-covered-armored-pony with a layer of soot, I wasn't so sure he had to care, but then I remembered he still had small gaps in his armor.

My head pounded from all the loud noises and the magic I had spent to get to this point, running up another set of stairs didn't help either. On the top of everything the way to the first floor was blocked by a large amount of rubble. and Maul couldn't fit through a half clogged doorway. He tried to attack it with his claws but they couldn't find enough firm purchase to move the rubble. I recalled the holes that had lead all the way to the top and he nodded at the idea, splitting up the party yet again as I moved fast for something familiar.

Soon enough I found the stairway up though I had to dodge past three more of the annoying Sentry bots who were still fighting with several Mister Handy's. Despite the dozens of them that were on the floor in various states of destruction. One purple variant however seemed to be leading the rest while a blue one went around repairing the broken ones with parts of other broken bots. I dived a flamethrower while another Sentry bot shot a rocket that literally passed my face and missed by inches. My hat wasn't so lucky though and it caught on fire. Why did they like fire so much?

I dragged my hat against the wall trying to put the fire out with magic and the wall while I ran up the next set of stairs and ran headfirst into something. Well not something in general, it was orange. But it was a pony instead of a robot. Of course the first thing the unintended target of my full out sprint said was, a surprised, "Huh?!"

I shook my head, getting a better look at the mare right before my vision was impeded by a large orange painted gun barrel pointed in my face. I promptly ducked and my hat went from being slightly singed to having a hole in it as well. Dang it. I headbutted the mare, lifting her up by her gun and tossing her onto her back. By Celestia was she heavy. Sadly my tactic didn't work as the opponent merely backed up a few steps and lashed out with her front hooves, hitting me square across the face with a metal shod hoof. I went flying....Sideways.

As I was crashed into the side of a wall I was dazed and upside down, by the time my vision recovered the gun barrel was back in my face, "Who're you." a familiar voice sounded, still as cold and harsh as the last time I had heard her.

My eyes peered at the power armored mare in orange and black striped armor that was bearing the same type of face that her Sentry bots had been decorated with as well, I realized where I had seen her before, "You're the pony who disturbed the peace back outside the tavern of the Eternal Flame a few days ago..." I told her getting a momentary pause before she prodded me with her saddle mounted gun again, her wings flared out, both which had been formally hidden behind her guns, "Answer the question cheese legs."

Well that was a new one, "No one in particular. Though it won't matter if this entire place explodes and kills us both." I told her, I imagined a look of shock on this ponie's face by her response of flinching.

"It can't explode, not yet!" she shouted and she barreled off down the stairs while I up righted myself from the confusing position of the sky being below me and back to normal. I fixed my hat and began to drag myself towards the exit, great, she had dislocated my left hind leg. I'd need to set it back with some help before long, but I didn't have time so instead I reluctantly injected myself with Med-X and tossed the then empty needle aside so I could deal with the pain.

Before long I was out of the building and I had barely cleared fifty feet before the most magnificent explosion rocked the place, taking me head over heels and launching me into the air as the facility exploded in enough magnificence to cover the building and make a mushroom cloud of green balefire straight up into the sky. The shockwave from the explosion however blew me into a wall. Shortly thereafter my Pipbuck began ticking away indicating that the atypical magical radiation had spread across the area while the deafening roar and blinding light removed my two of my three favorite senses while I got the intense feeling of being thrown into the sun by Celestia herself.

Did I ever mention how much I hated scientists and their labs? Frankly I blamed them for making this place to begin with. As darkness claimed my sight I sighed, shortly passed out with a dislocated leg and in the middle of an area that was, to my guess, extremely hazardous to my health. Couldn't help it though, my magic was drained and I wasn't going anywhere. Dear Luna was the darkness so comforting.

Xp Footnote: 75% until level up.

Maul: Companion Lost, All perks related to this companion has been removed.

Quest Perk Gained: Grudge Against Science: Your interactions with Scientists and the type have set your science skill to 25. You're not allowed to raise it, but as a result you do get to do 20% more damage against those beings who have a Science skill of 26 or higher. Who said experimenting on other sentient creatures was ever a good thing?

Next Chapter: Chapter 15: Dreams on Flames Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 48 Minutes