My screaming was only joined by the repetition of the question the dead-body-within-a-suit had asked. Its forelegs rising steadily as it lunged for me. In my surprise I had not enough time to dodge out of the way before it had wrapped its forelegs around my throat, giving me a disgustingly close look at its face while it choked me and turning my scream into a wheeze as it drove the air out of my lungs with a kick.

Struggling and panicking ensured as the suit repeated its question, "Who turned out the lights?"

I flailed, hooves ineffectively hitting the skeletal mass within the suit and causing not a lick of harm but instead activating my makeshift weaponry. With a buzz the laser teeth strapped to my hooves came back to life, and I stabbed into the suit, but its grip didn't falter, and I stabbed again, this time aiming at the forelegs and barely managed to cut one off and escape its grip before the second one wandered into the room, saying some nonsense about, "The Zebras are coming! The Zebras are coming!" in a hysterical voice.

Only this one was armed with a flamer. My eyebrows shot up and I turned to flee. I barely made it out the doorway before the stream of fire singed my butt and set my tail ablaze. I used my magic to encase the fire, and put it out while I ran, but it seems that my luck was getting worse, as yet another suit had found its way between me and the exit, and I wasted no time in running up the wall and over the suit as it fired off plasma rounds from a pistol it had possessed. All the while I was screaming. Soon after the intercom spoke up, instead of the V.I. however, a new voice shouted out, "Did you really think that we'd let you just gather the plans for the stealth suit, willy nilly? I think not, or else my name isn't Bull Frown! Ace assisstant of the infamous Doctor Smiles!"

"I just wanted my brain back!" I shouted at the intercom systems, but it seems the communication wasn't two way as it continued on.

"Now face the wrath of the immortal infantry bug and bot!" the male voice cackled on, "Oh, and by the way, the front doors locked so good luck fleeing!"

Great, just great. I was an insect cornered by frogs, or however that metaphor went. Which meant I needed to fight. My mind flew with the few options I had, and deciding upon a course I zipped back onto the ceiling above a doorway and waited. Minutes passed before I heard one of those suits, "Don't make me wear this... Don't make me wear this... Don't make me wear this..." it was garbled, as if it came from a recording device, and it probably did. The suit responsible was wearing a battle saddle and a heavy flamer. I waited for him to pass by, and without any more voices joining his, I dropped down upon his head, flipping and catching the suit by surprise as I landed on it with all four hooves, the two that had the cyber fangs, active. Then I started tearing to dismantle the suit while it struggled to buck me off. First to go was its forelegs and head. But as its lower body kept struggling, I had to severe all of its limbs. before I could claim its battle saddle. Something of which would take time to put on, if it fit me at all.

Until then I had to push and levitate the heavy flamer around. From down the hallway I could see the next suit coming, and I braced the flamer, still attached to the saddle, against a wall and pulled on the firing bit. Flames erupted, but not as a cloud of fire, instead a large ball shot forth, nailing the pony corpse bot in the chest and knocking it back as it was set ablaze. This wasn't a flamer, but an incinerator, which meant it shot fireballs instead of a cloud of fire. My magic quickly grabbed the fallen plasma pistol and dragged it to me as the next suit, this one with an actual flamer, came into sight, and I fired again. Missing the suit itself and taking off its head. The suit continued though, closing the distance and I kept firing. The incinerator rang empty at the same time I hit the skeleton in the chest, and like the other one I hit it was blasted backwards and off its hooves, to never move again. I moved to claim its fuel and reload it into the incinerator, minutes passed and I deemed it safe enough to put on the battlesaddle itself, and attach both heavy weapons to my sides. I wasn't particularly a fan of them, while they were impressive they used ammunition that was rare in the wasteland, but at the moment I adored these two fire based weapons for their sheer firepower. I chuckled to myself, firepower.

I could hear the sound of weapons fire and the crash of metal on metal in the hallways beyond the room I had been told to stay in, and I progressed. Plasma pistol and laser pistol ready alongside the two heavy weapons, and all the ammunition I could scavenge from the corpses. These things were a medical abomination, that I knew. They were machines that piloted ponies, rather than the other way around, and I grumbled at what this Bull Frown had said. He wasn't exactly being quiet either, as the speakers rumbled back to life, "You think that's it little robot and bug? Not even close. Release pods 6-18."

I heard an affirmative from the V.I. and cursed as half a dozen pods in the next room I walked in came to life, suits with skeletons in them walking out, already somehow fully armed. Both my heavy weapons hissed as they coated the room in heavy weapons fire for the five seconds of ammunition I had. Mowing down through four of the six of them that were in this room. The remaining two were different. They were more armored, and I fired off my plasma pistol at it with my magic, getting a glancing shot on its already heated armor, the glancing shot was all it needed to drive a hole in the already heated metal, but that left the one that I hadn't shot, who had warmed up a... What was that thing and why did it look like a minigun?

The first pew made me run back out of the room. Gatling lasers? Really? I thought those were a myth! I fled down the hallway and back into my first room, hiding above the doorway again. I had to disengage the flamer and incinerator from my saddle, but I was waiting to do so until he was directly below me. It was slow moving, but its metal was still glowing orange from the flamer bathing it when it passed under me. Sucking in my breathe I disengaged the flamer and incinerator, letting them drop onto the machine before I dropped myself, claws active and plunging into its leg armor. I hissed as the hot metal burned me, but I sliced with all the fervor of a ravenous rad rabbit on its unsuspecting prey. Once It stopped moving I gave it another few cuts just for good measure before starting to heal myself.

Quickly I disengaged the gatling laser, taking it and the ammunition pack it was wearing. Now I had a healthy amount of ammunition if I were to use it with the laser rifle, but I was quickly seeing the allure of the gatling gun of red beaming death and other heavy weapons. Cait would probably kill me if I abandoned it anyway. Dragging myself along I managed to find a locked medical box which didn't prove that difficult to open, thanks to a certain bug pony shooting it, and inside I managed to grab some healing potions and a rad away. Then I found the trail of corpses that Trixie had dealt with, each crushed and melted through at various parts. Trusting that the robot could deal without me for a bit longer, I looted them as well, grabbing an intact laser rifle, which immediately joined me on the weaponless side of the battle saddle, and a few grenades and ammunition for my laser weapons. More ammunition joined me as I caught up to Trixies trail of carnage, aiding her as she dealt with a particularly stubborn suit that didn't want to die despite missing its lower body, which was slumped against a wall. I shot a trio of shots into the suits chest piece, which seemed to also double as its central intelligence, as I had figured out, and down it went.

"Commander Aria." Trixie nodded to me, and she turned to continue onwards, "There is an estimated of three hostiles left in the building."

"Oh?" I asked.

"The objective, the suit itself, and its two bodyguards, though I seem to be sensing a still alive biological organism in the suit itself ahead of us."

The speakers erupted to life again, "You will never get past the final three infantry, or else I, Bull Frown, also known as Dr. Terrible, will eat a boot. Many have tried to claim the wonder of technology, but none have succeeded."

I ignored the speakers and kept walking with Trixie. We came to the final door, where she said that the last three suits resided, and briefly I heard something. More precisely someone that wasn't me, Trixie, or the obnoxious voice. "Let me go you ruffians!"

It sounded familiar, oddly so, and I paused, holding a hoof up to Trixie to stop her. Beyond I heard an soothing voice reply, "Please do not resist, this is for your own safety and the safety of others."

"Screw you to the moon with Nightmare Moons Pointy horn." came the cussed reply, and I realized why it sounded familiar. It was that Nightmare Nighter. "They have a hostage." I told Trixie, "Someone I know."

"Engaging rescue operations?"

I nodded, "Affirmative."

"Rescue operation engaged." There was something off about Trixie, her stance had shifted, "Powering primary generator to sixty percent capacity, overloading primary movement drives for optimal chance of rescue."

"Pardon?" I said but she was already openning the doorway and sprinting through the door. I managed to follow after her, seeing the stealth suit, which was rather disapointing in apearance to the other two suits, but held the orange mare inside it first. The other two suits, however, were power armored.

Trixie crashed into one of the two guards, knocking it off its hooves and driving the grey metal orange as Trixie herself turned her claws red. A new heat level, which I didn't even want to try touching. The stealth suit tried saying something, "Look it is our-" before I nailed the second guard with a barrage of gatling laser fire, bringing the suit down in less than 10 seconds flat, as the stealth suit promptly said, 'engaging combat mode' and started towards me, drawing a... broken sub machine gun? Really?

I charged forward, ramming into the mare, who cursed and said to me, "You again, really?"

"Yep, me. Now try and hold still a moment." I tried slicing into one of the suits panels, but I was grabbed, and tossed overhead and over the orange masked mare.

Momentarily I reexperienced the joy of flight, as I crashed into the far wall, being propped up and now leaning on my weapon as the suit advanced towards me. "Its no good." The orange mare said, "It knows all my techniques, cause I had to fight it hoof to hoof earlier. It learns how to fight the more you fight it!"

Well thanks for the warning, I guess. I wanted to shoot the suit, but I didn't know how much damage it could take before I would end up harming the Pumpkin mare.

"Trixie!" I yelled, "Get that suit off her!" Trixie obliged, disengaging the power armored suit that had a gaping crater in its chest and was missing two legs to engage the suit, I in the meantime shot the crud out of the remaining guard.

"Watch out, direct fighting won't work-" The pumpkin mare shouted, as the suit made her acrobatically flip into the air, and land on top of Trixie, the robot mare herself glinted eerily.

"Initiating unarmed protocol three." she replied, and Then I got to watch as immortal robot, and hostage holding robot performed martial arts worthy of Grey's praise. My jaw wanted to drop as the suit and the robot started to speed up, blow after blow being avoided by the suit as if it was not more than a mirage, while Trixie remained firm and unyielding to any attacks of the suit thanks to her starmetal composition. Eventually the suit slipped up, by trying to choke hold the robotic mare, which the robotic mare used as an opportunity to reverse pin the suit, "Commander Aria, cut it off her, now!" Trixie yelled to me, and I advanced.

I managed to cut open the chest plate and sleeves of the suit, freeing the upper body of the pumpkin mare, which was heavily scarred from past encounters, and slightly burnt and cut up from a combination of me cutting through the suit and Trixies heated blows taking out patches of the suit itself during the combat. Once I had removed the lower half of the suit as well, the Pumpkin colored mare leapt free of the remains of it, and flapped her wings to stay airborne, "Freedom!" she exclaimed.

"How did you even get here?" I asked the pumpkin mare, and she replied.

"None of your business..." but after a second she reminded herself that we just risked our lives to free her, and she muttered, "Though if you must know I was searching for some technology, and this was a prime suspect."

"Well this place doesn't really have anything that isn't inhumane." I told her, "The guys who run this place are big jerks, and the ones in the big smiley face dome thing are insane loony robots who dissect ponies for fun."

"Oh joy..." the orange mare muttered, "Listen, Lovebug, that was your name right?"

Actually lovebug was my radio nickname, but I couldn't correct her before she continued, "Yeah, it was that, I'm not going to say thanks for rescuing me, as I could of probably gotten free eventually myself. But... uh..." the mare looked away, "Thanks for uh, helping out. Why are you here, anyway?"

"Looking for the suit you were in, or more precisely to get a blueprint of it, so that I could get my brain back from the crazy ponies who took it." I told her.

"They took your brain...?" The pumpkin Nightmare Nighter replied,"And I thought my town was weird." she muttered, looking at my head.

"They also kinda took out some of my other vital organs, but that isn't as important, cause my brain got stolen by that voice on the intercom."

"Bull Frown, or Doctor Terrible, as he's calling himself?" The pegasus asked, and I nodded.

"That's just terrible." the mare replied, before facehoofing at her own pun, "Ugh, can't believe I just said that... Listen, Lovebug, I owe you one, and I intend to repay that in time, but currently I have more important stuff to do. So, consider this a down payment." She kicked a wall, and a hidden terminal fell out, "That should have a database connection, should help immensely with what you're looking for, and I already searched it and found nothing I was looking for."

"T-thanks?" I said and she shook her head, dismissing it.

"Whatever, the username is 'DocMag' and the password is 'drowssap' which, in my opinion, is lame." she looked really unimpressed, and started to fly upwards, towards a small hole in the ceiling, "I'll challenge you to a fight elsewhere, remember that Aria. I still want that knowledge that's on your pipbuck!" Then she vanished.

I went to the terminal and downloaded the terminals contents to my pipbuck. To my surprise, it wasn't just the stealth suit objective that got completed, but I had also managed to find an audio file to recycle a magic emitter, if I ever found one. But the blueprints for the magic emitter itself was also included, so that objective was also cleared. Now it was just time to go back to The Face and see what I had to do next. While ignoring the dozens of additional map markers that flooded the map for this area. The sooner I was out of here, the better.

Xp Footnote: 20% until Level up.
New Quest perk: Advanced Technologies Blueprints(ATB): With an sufficient repair skill and the needed materials, you can manufacture some of the advanced technologies within the Big Grin from a crafting table regardless of your own science skill as long as you have the blueprints to work with.

Next Chapter: Summer Smiles DLC 8: Attack on Tigers Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 24 Minutes