"I am seriously sick of these robots." I grumbled, "its like everywhere I go, science has to ruin my day. Even in places where its just the aftermath."

I had grumbled this all to myself, after having left the large dome like stone building called 'The Face'. Having head out on my way towards the first marker that had shown up on my pipbuck, my only weapons were a poorly kept 9mm pistol that had hardly a single clip of ammunition to go with it, and a set of dirty business clothes that were two sizes too short and about as protective as the medical gown had been. Though I was glad for the coverage at least. The scrubs had felt worse than being naked, and the change of clothes also helped me to try not thinking about what they had done. Not that I was sure that everything they had done was medically possible.

The building I had exited from was already an irritating faded yellow, where paint had worn away over countless years of wear. The entire facility was based around a large hill in the center of a crater. To the north were several sky scraper like buildings, though their designs were based around a series of triangular shapes, from the building itself to the windows and distant doors A marker was buried in that mess, something else I didn't look forward to. To the east, which was the only other direction I could see in from this side of the building was a series of rather broken down buildings leading down to a staircase onto another hill, where a single building seemed mostly intact. Between the two way points, sky scrapper tall buildings slowly transitioned into shorter housing and then back into rubble.

Habit took over, as I took the harder way down the road, crawling behind the rubble, from cover to cover rather than out down the easy way of the road. Grey would say that route would of been too exposed, and inviting for an attack, and in unknown territory while alone and practically unarmed, it would of been foolish. It wasn't long before I would have my first encounter with the inhabitants of the massive circular crater that surrounded the facilities. I was alerted first by the loud gunfire of semi automatic weaponry, which sent me to ground, paranoid of yet another encounter with bullets who in all ways had the right of way to where they were going, but it wasn't me that was being shot at. As I inched towards the source from rubble to rubble, I spotted three ponies in medical scrubs identical to the ones I had been wearing earlier, only these ponies had added a gas mask of some sort to their look. Among these three lobotomites was something that made my heart stop.

A brute. Dressed in heavy metal armor with twin miniguns mounted on each side, Like the brute I had met Cait at, it stood easily four to five ponies tall, and his muscle structure was misshaped to being extremely top heavy. The gunfire had originated from one of the three lobotomites who was still shooting at the brute to no avail, the larger opponent shrugging off bullets as if they were flies, and proceeding to crush the offender with one hoof, I shuddered, slinking as sneakily as I could away from the fight in progress as they were distracted by each other. Lest I be pulled into the brawl. I took note, however, that the other two scrubbed ponies didn't make a run for it as the brute-ghoul turned his attention to them, and were dispatched with equal ease. Either they were suicidal, or didn't recognize the danger presented to them as they attacked the brute with a sledgehammer and a large piece of rebar pipe right before they died.

It was another ten minutes before I stopped moving, having put plenty of distance between myself and that brute, though I couldn't be sure if I was completely safe. Why couldn't my pipbuck of came with an EFS for detecting robots? My senses weren't picking up anything at all. Not the brute, the the lobotomites that it was slaughtering, nothing. Was it because my brain was removed? Or did neither of them actually feel anything? Maybe a mixture of both.

A short rest later, and a few more minutes of scurrying through the rubble, and I had arrived at the facility where the magic Emitter was supposedly to be found. Paranoid about the front door, I went around, and without a backdoor to the facility, I decided to climb. I grumbled about small mercies as I still had my ability to climb at least. Though the effort was ultimately wasted, with a lack of any windows or holes other than the front entrance. Three things struck my mind at the same time by this fact.

The scavenger in me said, there must be something intact in here! The skeptical me suggested that someone, or something would be more likely to be living in here and try to kill me when I entered, and the Grey in me said I was about to die by going in the frontal and only entrance. Thanks Grey for your oh so helpful teachings. Never the less, my curiosity forced to open that front door and take the leap of faith by entering that building with gun drawn in my mouth.

I was met with a room full of ancient looking science equipment that was either mostly broken, abused, or knocked over along the room, as if a miniature storm had passed through the room. Two dusty windows to some interior room were on the wall opposite of where I had entered, while there were doors on two remaining walls of the room that lead possibly to some sick twisted experiment or other that I had come to expect from scientists in the world. I scanned the room over twice before stepping onto a wall, crawling through the doorway and onto the ceiling like the bug I was. Something Grey had drilled into us was that ponies hardly ever looked up, though the ceiling was too low to hide on, it would be an unexpected tactic which would provide an element of surprise. I wasn't disappointed.

Unsurprisingly there was yet another robot. It was a Mister Gutsy, the war variant of the handy series, and best yet we had run into each other when I had been about to enter the next room. It saw my face and fired straight forward out of corrupted programming, where my chest would of been had I been standing on the ground. However, I didn't make the same mistake as I let go of the ceiling and dropped down upon the startled thing. The robots ancient engine sputtered as it suddenly had to deal with a lot more weight than it was meant to and I almost forced it to the ground. I had to wrap my legs around its trio of eye-stocks as it predictably started screaming anti zebra sentiment and lashed out, nearly giving my tail a trim with its saw blade arm.

I cursed as I fired off my pistol rounds into the underside of its thruster as I juggled with staying aboard the flying maniacal robot and breaking it. The thing didn't go quietly, though the shot up its only means of flight managed to fry the entire thing and I had to jump off as its engine exploded. Then came its friends. By the time I was done fighting them, a good portion of me felt burnt as well as the previous feeling of violation and a now empty gun. Which meant I had to scavenge something from this room or face the next enemy virtually unarmed with nothing but me, a metal club that the gun would become, and the short range Electrical prod that was within my pipbuck. I searched head over hoof throughout the room, pausing as I inched through piles of broken glass that used to be a chem brewing station to get to the desks they used to reside on. Besides broken glass I managed to scavenged a broken pipe off the ceiling and half a dozen scalpels that had been left in one of the supply closets.

Moving onwards, I gave the pipe a few experimental swings in my magic, nearly hitting the narrow hallway walls as I went from one room to the next. Then I smelled something foul. It was faint, but the scent was as familiar as ever. Blood. Immediately I was back on the ceiling and on my guard. Peeking around the next few corners I found the source, which was a dead body of a pony in the same sort of scrubs I had woken up in. Only it wasn't alone and its companions weren't in the same state. That and they were eating the corpse.

I sneaked forward, being reminded of what the vamponies were going to do if both me and Grey hadn't stopped them. Only this was both meat and blood rather than just the later. I withheld a gag while I brought the pipe up, and paused as it turned to face me. It was wearing most of a dirty brown leather mask, the lower half bloodstained with a hole for the mouth to still be able to bite into stuff. Its eyes were covered in a featureless black tainted glass and as I brought the pipe down one of them shattered. It hissed and screeched like a feral animal and tried charging me, its teeth bared for my throat. Only instead of allowing myself to get my throat torn out, I bashed it over the head repeatedly until it died.

Loose metal pipes soon became my bestfriend for threats as I wandered deeper into the laboratory. Flying Mister Gutsy? stick a pipe up its thruster and beat it till it can no longer see or operate its limbs anymore. Lobotomite animal pony thing? Whack it upside the head. However, when I did arrive at the very end, I was met with yet another new sight that a pipe to the head wasn't going to fix.

Well for one it was large, two it was in a room whose walls had been torn down to allow more space, and three, it was feral. I quickly climbed up the walls and onto the ceiling as I examined what I had to face. About half a dozen times heavier than a pony in metal armor, large bulging muscles that were covered in scabbed over skin with only a trace amounts of fur still attached to it. It's eyes practically glowed with irradiated power and I had to shudder at facing it with a random pipe and some small cutting instruments. Luckily the only thing it wore was a heavily stained version of what the other lobotomized test subjects had been wearing, however it was more of a bib than clothes due to its sheer frontal mass.

It was a beast for sure, Even the raider brute had some semblance of sanity to it, an equine stance of adoration to cruelty. This was just primal instinct, the way it sniffed the ground as if smelling for something, probably me. No wait, definitely me. It was looking at me, oh dear princess Luna buck me with her horn!

I scrabbled for purchase on the ceiling as it roared, nearly bringing me down upon its open jaw as the shockingly loud sound echoed throughout the entire place. I panicked, months of combat training going out the window as I gave one long frighten scream as my grip failed and I fell towards it. I didn't have a sword that could cut through bone, nor an heavy explosive of which to blow its head off. Instead I had a few small knives and a suddenly inadequate pipe.

Unintentionally I landed on its back, a mere filly in comparison to the monsters size, and it roared, turning in place before trying to buck me off. I only continued screaming as I clung desperately to the monsters back. Magic imploding as concentration flew out the window with the combat training and my body did all it could to ride out the storm.

It was a losing battle, without my wings I couldn't possibly hope to outpace it, or get away for that matter.

Not while it can see or smell you anyway... came the voice of my nightmare, Or perhaps you'd like something more?

I'd like to live if anything! It tried throwing itself into walls to dislodge me next, but its large front shoulders that far outpaced the mass within its lower body made these a failure as he only made dents into the walls.

How about I offer you a deal? I give you a need, and I get something I need?

I cursed at the voice in my head. This was not the time for diplomancy or marketing!

Oh, I think this is the perfect opportunity.

I cursed at it again, but something it had said had struck an idea into me, I gazed wildly about, looking for the scalpels that had been flung mercilessly to the ground when my magic imploded, and grabbed them with it, forcing myself to expend some of my stockpile as I dragged them as fast as I could to the beast who, in his blind rage, didn't see what was coming until it was too late.

Four needle sharp stabs from four seperate objects that went in, but not out. I stabbed the scalpels deep into its eyes and up its nose as I could and leapt off its back as it roared in a mixture of fury and agony as it was struck literally blind of both sight and smell as a torrent of ichor erupted from both. I ran in panic as it headbutted a wall, trying to get the pain to stop only to impale the medical instruments further into its own skull. Into the room beyond I fled, and Slammed the door shut behind me, its screams barely muffled but a moment of peace acquired.

Maybe next time.

I could only gasp for air as my bodies troubles from the encounter caught up with me, as it screamed in protest over the physical assertion after the surgery, and I flopped onto my side, doing nothing but trying to calm my breathing while I examined the room. ragged breathing gave way to quiet giggles, that soon gave way to demented laughter, "I can't believe that worked!" I wanted to do a little cheer, another escape from death!

The roar outside interrupted my cheer, oh right, still in danger. Hopefully something other than a pipe in this room. Well, there was a lot of old equipment around a, ponytron station? It didn't have any glass showing its occupant, or even if it was occupied but it was some machines recharge station for sure. Next to it was a terminal, which I hazarded allowed access to it. However, the station wasn't the only thing in the room, there was also a few memory orbs sitting on the terminal like paperweights. I didn't trust whatever it was that was inside it, but with the roaring outside, I had little choice in the matter but either to try and hack the terminal; a skill in which I was sorely lacking, or to watch the memory orbs and see if the password was in it.

Clearly I chose the one I was better suited for after hiding myself under the table with some uprooted metal flooring panels as walls as the world faded away and the screaming grew dull and eventually quiet as the memory orb sucked me in.

It was always an alien feeling being within a memory orb, while it was the second thing we were taught to do in class, viewing another ponies memory was always bizarre for a creature like myself. The hot feeling of warmblooded flesh, the thick coat of fur covering ones skin. This proved no different as the host was clearly a stallion of average proportions who was currently reading a newspaper who's headline read: 'Treachery in Equestria, The Crystal Empire secedes from the kingdom!' in large bold font along with the picture of an pissed off bright pink Alicorn only a few inches short of being as tall as I am along side an equally angry looking white unicorn.

"Dr. Cherwood?" an authoritative yet questioning voice asks my host.

My Host's attention is drawn to the speaker before I can read the story printed to the newspaper, the paper itself withdrawn with a familiar yet foreign spark from a horn that feels more like awash in a warm glow rather than a slight drain. Ahah, my host is a unicorn! My host speaks, a calm yet smooth baritone male voice that would only be seconded by Mr. Hooftingtons radio voice, only there was a slight click of the tongue as he started his sentence, "Yes River?"

"Dr. Shale will see you now."

My host nodded, and proceeded down a hallway, into a single office room that overlooked the Big Smile's central dome from a distance, only instead of faded paint, the big yellow and black smile that adorned it was in full blooming color. However, it was the pony behind the desk that held my host's attention. A dark grey stallion of bright purple hair and a rock for a cutiemark who was typing away at his terminal. My Host wordlessly took his seat in one of the guest chairs that adorned his plain office room. Saying the office needed a mares touch would be an understatement.

"Dr.Shale."

The pony looked up from his terminal, "Greetings Dr.Cherwood... I wonder if you know why I called you here..."

Xp Footnote: 50% left until level up.

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