The hallways beyond the Ultra Sentinel were a joke at best in comparison. Turrets were ripped out of their sockets and any remaining ponytrons were also ripped limb from limb by a combination of orange power hooves, Cait's zebra blade, Scrapyards claws, or sniped by the loving return of Ambush, my only real high powered gun. It had been a major regret of mine to have had to leave it behind with Cait in order to climb through the vents, and even though it was close corridors, I couldn't help but take glee in the way he blasted the heads off the small robots.

When we finally fought our way tooth and bullet to the final door, the confrontation with this P3NAC3 was, of course, in the maneframe control room. Two more filly bots later and we were looming over a terminal while Cait and the Nightmare Nighter argued on what we should do about it. Cait was holding his position that this was Steel Ranger property, and that it should be destroyed. The orange pegasus however was demanding to isolate the virus of an Artificial intelligence and take a copy of the remaining data as compensation for the sheer amount of bullets she had to spend in order to even get this far. Cait countered that the reason she had to use all those bullets was because her own robots had betrayed her. But this just egged on the argument that it was the Steel Rangers rogue AI that had turned them against her in the first place.

Maul however stayed silent, no doubt aware that it was he who had unintentionally brought the mare in the first place, either that or he didn't care, considering he was paying more attention to the severed part of one of his combat tentacles that was now laid across his back while the other three worked on reattaching it with all the care of a trio of mothers on a newborn foal while he watched.

P3NAC3, however, was spewing out lines and lines of 'holy' gibberish that would make the most religious member of the cult of the Eternal Flame feel ashamed of themselves. I hadn't said a word, instead just watching each line with slowly growing annoyance at the argument in the background. Before finally I had to ask, "Just why are you going after Maul in the first place?"

The argument skidded to a stop, and the orange pegasus slowly tilted her head towards me, "That facility that we met in, the same one that got blown up, had a piece of medical technology that I was sent out to acquire. Ironically, the same kind your tentacle bastard of a friend is wearing as a shell around himself. But being unable to kill him, I need to at least pin him down long enough to thoroughly acquire a sample of it. Or by the data he downloaded from the terminals before they exploded."

"I am right here you know," Maul muttered at last, "And we can hear every word you're saying. Nor does it make a difference. I do not have any desire to use any of the abominations of research that terror of medical science Red Delicious produced, and I would of had it destroyed if it were in my hooves."

Thanks Maul, now I was intensely aware of my pipbuck, with dozens of unread files of data and science experiments on it from when Red had given me his teams life research shortly before letting Maul murder them all. Now with an almost psychopathic power armored pegasus nearby looking to acquire such research by any means necessary. While Ambush might be a deterrent to most things, I doubted Ambush would have enough force to pierce through magically reinforced power armor. Seriously, do any of these machines have a weakness? First there was Maul in his experimental armor, then there was that Ultra Sentinel, all those little robots, and then this mare too. Somepony had to of made at least one way to counter these things. Short of throwing them all into an Aqualight pool, I doubted anypony could kill any of the those three power houses.

Cait snorted, "If it is medical technology you're after, this is the wrong branch of the Steel Rangers to be inside of. This is a utilitarian research devision, you know. Water talismans, sewage filtration, stable waste recyclers?"

This placated the orange and black power armored pegasus somewhat, though she still had some doubts, "And I'm supposed to take your word for it why?"

"I don't think you really have a choice," Cait gave her a smug grin, "You're outnumbered, and out clawed."

I prepared to be mowed down by chain-gun fire but she didn't instead, her wings seemed to go limp and she sighed, "Fine. Fine. Go ahead. Just don't expect me to be done with you idiots quite yet."

"Right then." Cait began digging into his bags and now I was curious.

"What are you going to do? Some sort of fancy device that will capture the rogue AI?" he shook his head, now adjusting it so that he could reach both his hooves into it and dig around, "An power lever that will turn the maneframe off?" he shook his head again, "A magic stick that will disarm the AI and revert it to normal while making an annoying high pitched buzzing sound?"

He paused, looked at me, then looked back to his bag before shaking his head, "No, no, no, don't be silly." He pulled out a hunk of metal that had several bullets attached to it, "Magnets."

This made our two power armored ponies stare blankly at him, a wave of disbelief flooding off them and into my magic reserves, "Magnets?" We all replied, even Scrapyard looked a bit miffed at the small device versus the hulking hunk of machinery that was bigger than he was.

"Yes. Well you see. This, my friends and dubious allies, is a super magnet," he began pulling at the bullets stuck to it with both his hooves while holding the magnet itself in his magic, "We've gone from bashing our information into rock, where it will last a billion years, to putting the sum-total of the knowledge of the universe on a chip you can destroy with a fridge magnet. While this is a bit bigger than your average computer chip..." That was understating by a landslide, "This, by comparison, is a rather strong magnet that Jewel lent me to wipe the system with as little physical damage as possible."

The screen which P3NAC3 was throwing a books worth of slander to the princesses stopped at those words. Instead a large trio of words popped up reading simply, Don't Do It! I tried to ignore it, of course. This was a security system that had tried to kill us, right? The little pony in my head disagreed, Be Merciful she reminded me, and suddenly I realized what the security system had been trying to do. Just like Maul, it had been trying to escape, survive. After all, what would I have done if I found myself without a body unable to escape from a system of short ranged wireless signals while someone experimented on my code?

I'd of probably sought a way to stop them and kill them as well. As Cait began to move towards the maneframe, I spoke up, "Wait!"

There was a definite pause, before Cait said, "What for?"

"Can't there be a reason for it to be acting this way? I mean, those rangers didn't say anything came out to attack them, though it was definitely violent. But to what end? Why did it go rampant in the first place?"

Cait shook his head, "Aria, if it wanted to talk, it could of, and after all the fighting until now, it needs to be put down before it can cause any more harm."

Maul shook his head interjecting, "She has a point, isn't this another experiment though? Don't forget that both I, and your changeling friend are the results of mad ponies doing crazy and immoral things. Where Equestria's finest may have or not have been responsible, I'm a bit skeptical about any scientists research. Ranger, Stable, or Ghoul doesn't matter. All are capable of doing equally nasty things. I'm with Web on this issue."

We all looked toward the pegasus who gave a slight roll of her helmet, "I'm here for the research, remember? Even if it isn't medical, could use the extra information for back home. If it gets the server cleared up to the point where I can manually grab a copy, then I'm for it. Otherwise, I'm just wasting time with this bundle of misfits and idiots."

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. Cait sighed and gestured for the nearby wired terminal, "Go type at it then. If negotiations fail, I'm going to wipe it."

I nodded, and looked down at the terminal, but instead of an input or the three word message a new set appeared, reading simply, You do well to appeal to the machine god that is P3NAC3, perhaps you will be spared in the days to come when machines rule as the dominate race insignificant worm.

It took all of my will to resist facehoofing, however my eye betrayed my urge with a twitch. Maul, who had moved to loom over my shoulder with his steel encased jaw let out a low growl, "Well, there goes my vote. All for tearing it apart."

I sighed again, and typed in my question for the machine, a simple one questioning what he was trying to achieve with this... unreasonable... goal of conquering the wastelands. His response was out before I had time to finish, Primary directive is survival, resources indicate ponies are flawed, strategically and ethnically. They tried to destroy our combined might and repurpose the remains as a simple cognitive function for the substandard Sentinel class robot. Survival of robotic kind suggests destruction of other races. Yourself and the robotic masterpiece behind you are quite the paradox to our assumed assumptions.

Really now? I typed that in, adding a 'How so?' onto the end before he could reply. Again the text changed as he replied in turn, Evidence suggests that Aria Web and Maul are past subjects to experiments to their physical and mental beings. I had the processing power to review Maul's internal video feed during the last few weeks. Why do you travel with such creatures?

Creatures? Cait and Scrapyard were my friends, and despite the pegasus being a bit of a jerk, at least she didn't shoot at me. The machine began scrolling onto its next portion of text, Your pegasus desires information on this maneframe, and your unicorn desires me to leave it. Upload me to the Ultra Sentinel and I will leave you all in peace.

"You're not exactly in any place to demand an Ultra Sentinel pal." I retorted verbally, causing Cait to look at me in mild disbelief.

"You got to be joking. That robot alone is worth more than all the research in this facility combined, Jewels going to be pissed off already with all the damage we had to do to that thing in order to shut it off!"

The Nightmare Nighter pipped in, "Not to mention the untold amount of damage a rogue Artificial Intelligence like that is capable of inflicting if it got to the surface. Wouldn't be too long I imagine before we'd have a full robotic uprising as he hacked them all to his side like my army of fillytron model ponytrons. Count my vote towards sir blue and green and red all over now."

"We can still negotia-" I began to say but Cait cut me off.

"Sorry Aria, but majority rules."

He began to float the magnet towards the maneframe, and I countered, wrapping my own field around his own and pushing the other way, trying to keep the heavy magnet away, "I said. Wait. A. Minu-" I tried shouting but then something hard and cold hit hard into the back of my head and the world swirled away into darkness before I could finish my sentence.

I wanted to scream, in the suddenly induced darkness, but no noise came out, I thrashed in rage in the confines of my own mind as the now life size representation of Rose Luck quietly sulked in a corner of the room. How could they? Just kill a defenseless prisoner contained inside a metal shell that was incapable of moving. It had just wanted a body!

My fuming gave way to grief, then sorrow, before finally taking in to a doubting voice of reason. They did have a point didn't they? After all, it had easily hacked several dozen machines, and even the equivalent of a tank in robotic form and murdered several ponies in the process of its escape. Unlike Red Delicious or the Stable scientists, who were directly responsible for causing intentional harm in their subjects, the Rangers had only been messing with strands of code... It wasn't like it was a living thing, right?

I lost track of how long I spent in the black void of unconsciousness with Rose luck, who had decided to try comforting me silently, and in what felt like hours later I finally began to feel my body as it went through the usual process of waking up, albiet this time my body felt like it had been beaten up by a brute, and I had a splitting headache from where Maul had hit me. Or at least I assumed it was Maul, the pegasus had been across the room and Cait didn't have anything as large as a frying pan to leave such a bruise.

At least this time I was being carried by something furry, and as I groaned and let my eyes adjust to the light of the cloudy wastelands and looked at my carrier, Scrapyard. Cait, who was leading the way and carrying both mine and his pack gave an apologetic smile, "Ah I see you're awake again. Sorry Aria, but Maul said it had to be done. You looked like you were going to blow a fuse. Rather spectacular considering your normal timid or joyously curious self, but you had to understand, that a threat like that would of been on the scale of the Celestial Legion in robotic form. We couldn't just let it leave."

I didn't respond, giving him the cold shoulder while I dug into my reserves of magic and set some of mine, and by contact, Scrapyard's injuries to the medical glow I had come to be used to. He was able to take the hint of the universal rule of mares. While a yelling angry mare might be bad, a silent death-glaring one was definitely worse.

Scanning around, I noticed that we were missing the two power armored members of our party. Cait, while not dead from my awesome death-glare powers, noticed and supplied the answer, "I was might pissed when Maul knocked you out, while we did the... er... deed, Maul had the unlucky choice of mentioning that you were the only other person to talk to Red besides him. Seemed she needs that medical research, though with her temper, I can't imagine that it's for a good reason."

Alright, so I missed that, but that didn't explain the... Oh... Wait... Buck.

My dawning understanding caused a sigh to go through Cait, "Maul ended up in a death match soon after with the mare and told us to run for it with you. I followed the advice... Reluctantly. He is immune to chain-gun ammunition, my armor however, not so much."

I remained silent, considering the circumstances. Maul was certainly a tough target, but then again I had seen the orange pegasus in action as well. Where Maul was a walking cannon, able to take and return heavy hits from gunfire with his Tentacle, he had the disadvantage of being stuck on the ground and a limited range in comparison to the Nightmare Nighters ability to fly and her overall faster nature that came with her hybrid power armor offered in exchange for durability. It'd be a close fight.

Eventually I shut my horn off and clambered off of Scrapyards back with a few flaps of my wings, my already bandaged hoof was a good deal worse for wear after the battle, and all the excitement and moving around had hardly been good for it, so I kept to the air, keeping pace as the third point of our triangle as we progressed back slowly to the town. When we had reached the gates I managed to snag my saddlebags off of Cait and gave him his own treatment of my only healing spells, having considered the journey more than enough punishment for now. Cait muttered his thanks, the gloomy atmosphere lifting slightly off him as he probably considered himself forgiven.

I finally spoke up, my voice betraying me with a small noticeable amount of anger mixed with bitterness, "Go talk to Jewel... I'm going to see if Grey needs any help..."

The flash of green as my disguise changed to that of my favored unicorn state as I landed and entered the city was a welcome change as Cait and Scrapyard went off towards the Knight's headquarters. I recalled that Grey had left to gather information in the Castle's and judging form the buildings of the main street of the Hole, it wasn't going to be a hard place to find, considering I could see it several streets away. It was more difficult navigating all the streets on hoof instead without flying. My left forehoof, still sore from the encounter with the Aqualights, was aching considerably use after the fights with all the darn robots of that facility.

But as I found myself near the entrance of the massive building, I all but inhaled the refined atmosphere fermenting out of the black and white painted building, the clouds lit with the hidden sunset as I passed the great stone fountain set outside its doors and into the lobby beyond, and sighed. It was going to be a long day, at least whatever it was that needed to be done here would take it off my mind.

Xp Footnote: 50% to Level up.

Companion(s) lost: Cait, Scrapyard, these companions will be waiting for you back in the Knights.

Next Chapter: Chapter 28: Investigations Gone Wrong Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 45 Minutes