"You seem well educated. What are you doing here?"

Most of my physical lethargy was gone by morning, like Starlight had assured me it would be, but I was still gripped by the sense of loss. I mentioned it to the pink unicorn, but she just shrugged it off as being a ‘perfectly normal feeling’, and asked me to just remain focused on how much emotional pain having that mark had given me over the years. That helped a little, but the nagging sensation didn’t feel like it would ever go away. I suppose that it was a bit much to have hoped that a cutie mark problem would be something that could be corrected in an instant. It was clearly going to take a lot of time, and I just had to make peace with that.

Just as Starlight Glimmer was going to have to make peace with the barding that Ramparts had obtained for her from the Seaddle Guard. Much to the mare’s shagrin, it had been a well-used set; and―according to her nose―had not been very thoroughly cleaned since being last worn by its previous owner. Judging by the patched segments of kevlar near the barding’s shoulder and the one ceramic plate that was of a subtly different style than the other, older, hardened sections, I was willing to hazard a guess that there may even be a few lingering bits of the ‘previous owner’ stained into the barding’s fabric.

I decided that it was best not to mention my theory to the unicorn.

Starlight at least accepted the combat shotgun, even through her insistence that her magic was more than capable of dealing with threats. An inquiry from Arginine regarding how many of her magical lasers she could reliably conjure before burning out her horn for the day, and how that total compared with the number of rounds that had been expended during the fight with the Vipers the other day had persuaded the pink unicorn to conceded that having a ‘backup’ wasn’t a bad idea. Ramparts had been very careful in how he worded his urging that the mare should only use the shotgun as a measure of last resort. Given her performance at the range yesterday, I was inclined to agree.

This trip, I was clearly the pony holding us up; which irritated nopony more than myself. Not since my flightless filly days had I ever been the individual responsible for setting the pace during a trip. However, my wing was still very much healing at the moment, and would be for some time, according to Doctor Lancet. The first day hadn’t been so bad; until I’d woken up the next morning. It turned out that a lifetime spent drifting through the air didn’t even come close to preparing me for what felt like a forced march across the hard scrabble desert of the Neighvada Valley. How had Jackboot managed to do this for all those years?!

Even Starlight didn’t seem as out of breath as I did during our breaks. If ever I had suffered a blow to my self-esteem, that was it, right there: the former pony-cicle who’d lived her life as little more than a glorified librarian for the now-defunct Ministry of Arcane Science was more physically fit than The Neighvada Valley Wonderbolt.

Fucking. Ouch.

That wasn’t to say that the pink unicorn mare wasn’t thankful for our breaks either; and with the two of us showing the strain, it wasn’t hard to make the argument for slightly longer breaks, especially during meal times. Ramparts was probably the only pony that was actually annoyed by the pauses, and I suspected that was mostly because he couldn’t just yell threats and obscenities―or whatever it was Guard officers did―at the rest of us in order to encourage us to go faster. Arginine wasn’t offering an opinion either way, and Foxglove seemed to enjoy being afforded the time to tinker with our gear during daylight hours.

It was actually a little fascinating to watch. Every time we would take a break for an hour or so, which happened about three times a day, out came the violet mare’s tools and whichever article she was working on at the time. For the most part, this consisted of the helmet that I had acquired in Seaddle. Ideally, the Enclave headgear was supposed to interface with my pipbuck and allow for some increased functionality. However, at the moment, there were a few hitches.

First was the fact that, apparently, my pipbuck had been damaged when she had removed it from Jackboot’s leg before they infiltrated the White Hooves. She’d been concerned that would happen, as she had lacked the necessary tools to do it properly at the time. Among the problems were that the pipbuck’s inventory management system was barely operable. For the purposes of Foxglove’s current project though, the biggest issue was that my pipbuck had difficulty interfacing with what was supposed to be Stable-Tec compatible technology. File transfers with a hardline connection would apparently still function alright, but nothing wireless.

Had that been the only issue though, then a simple cable would have been all that was needed to get the helmet to work with my pipbuck. However, it looked like there was also a software issue as well.

“I guess it was too much to hope that the Enclave wouldn’t fiddle with the code after two hundred years,” the unicorn grumbled as she delicately manipulated a pair of the smallest screwdrivers that I had ever seen amidst the helmet’s circuit-lined interior, “I should be able to bypass a lot of the protocols with some clever soldering, but you’re going to lose a lot of functionality,” she advised me as she worked.

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters, without the software encryption, you’re not going to have long-range com capability…”

“Not that any of you have radios anyway,” well, except for Ramparts, but he wasn’t ever going to be far away anyway.

“True,” she acknowledged before continuing with her list, “but what you will probably miss is what looks like some sort of Flight Assist System,” that did get my attention and I pressed her for details, “these nodes here and here are some sort of sensor suite; but it’s not like SATS or anything. My guess is that they’re supposed to track altitude, airspeed, wind speed, and maybe even pressure zones. The kind of stuff a flier like you would appreciate knowing.”

I shrugged. That was information that I’d been flying without for nearly a decade. I suppose that knowing those things might have been a little helpful under specific circumstances, but I was content to continue operating without it.

“Most notable though is that this,” she tapped one of her tools against a tiny little talisman tucked away amidst some other circuitry, “is a transponder. There’s something similar in your pipbuck that allows them to be tracked if you know the tag you’re looking for. I bet that’s what allows Enclave pegasi to go above the clouds without being shot down by their automated defenses.”

“You mean I could actually go above the clouds if we got this to work?” the prospect of seeing the actual sky was something that appealed to me; though more as a curiosity than any sort of overwhelming desire. After all, so many other fliers got to see it, be they Enclave natives, or Dashites. I’d heard it described a time or two by the latter when they were waxing nostalgia, but I’d never seen it myself of course.

“Briefly,” Foxglove amended, “it would keep the automatic systems from zapping you immediately, but it’d also announce you were coming to any patrols in the area. I can’t say what a group of Enclave soldiers would do when they found some strange pegasus flying around in their territory with somepony else’s equipment.

A frown creased my lips. I suppose that in that scenario I would count myself lucky if all they did was shoot me, instead of torturing me for information about who I was spying for. It was doubtful that they would be inclined to take ‘sightseeing’ as a valid excuse for being where I wasn’t supposed to.

Well, no seeing the sky for me any time soon, I guess.

“Thanks for doing all of this, by the way,” I said to the violet unicorn as she continued her work, “I don’t think I really say it very often, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Foxglove glanced up at me, a curious little smile crossing her face, “...that means a lot to me. I appreciate it,” she returned her attention to the helmet, “it’s funny, because I actually haven’t thanked you for letting me do this stuff for you.”

I cocked my head, raising my working brow, “okay, you’re going to need to explain that one to me.”

The mare shrugged, “well, I mean, I really enjoy tinkering with things. Building them, improving them, fixing them; it’s what I spent my whole life doing in the Stable,” her features darkened a little when she referenced her old life, “when I...left, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to do any of that again. For a while, it looked like I wouldn’t,” I recalled her accounts of how her life in the Wasteland had been spent; and watched Foxglove shudder slightly as she briefly relived those memories before continuing.

“But since I started traveling with you, I get a little bit of that old life back,” she held up the helmet, “and I get to tinker with devices I didn’t even imagine back in the Stable,” the unicorn was thoughtful for a moment, “I don’t know if I’d have traded my life in the Stable for the opportunities I have now, had I known; but these last couple of months have made the Wasteland quite bearable for me, in a way I never thought it would be before I met you and Jackboot.

“I don’t think I ever thanked you for that,” she added, nudging me as she smiled more broadly.

I blushed, not having anticipated that response from the unicorn, “well, I guess that means I don’t need to feel bad about always asking you to fix my stuff. Sometimes I get worried I’m giving you too much to do.”

Foxglove actually laughed out loud at that, drawing a startled expression from all of us. When the violet unicorn recovered, she wiped a tear from her eye, still smiling, “‘too much’? Ha! If I ever find out where my old pipbuck got to, I’ll have to show you what my project schedule looked like for a typical week. My average workload was somewhere in the range of a hundred to hundred and twenty hours of work each week. These last few months have been a vacation compared to that,” her grin shifted into a wry smirk as she glanced around at our surroundings, “though I admit the scenery could have been better.”

“The monsters and raiders aren’t a plus either, I bet,” I noted.

“I would definitely like to file a noise complaint about all the gunfire, yes,” Foxglove agreed and the pair of us shared a laugh.

When it died down, the other mare was looking at me with a much more sober expression, her emerald eyes drifting towards my flanks, “how are you holding up with, you know…?”

I opened my mouth, ready to dismiss her concerns immediately, but the words died in my throat as I actually considered how I was feeling about the matter. I certainly felt...different without my cutie mark. It wasn’t just the lingering lethargy either. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was having second thoughts about our trip to Old Reino, I wasn’t feeling quite the same level of enthusiasm as I remembered. I chalked most of that up to the reality of the danger we would be facing setting in, but I couldn’t shake the notion that it might be something more than that.

“I noticed you’re not wearing your Wonderbolt barding,” Foxglove pointed out, her expression growing slightly more concerned at seeing my hesitation, “is it fitting alright?”

“It fits fine,” I shrugged, welcome for the change in topic. Sort of, “but it’s just a costume. It’s not even real barding,” I’d only ever tried it on in the first place because I thought it had looked cool. It wasn’t something that I had intended to wear regularly, “it’s not armored, and it’s brightly colored, and it’s not like I’m actually a Wonderbolt anyway,” I pointed out to the mare, “I’m probably going to get rid of it and put in an order with Sapi for some real pegasus-cut barding when we get back to Seaddle,” I’d need a bit more money than we had for something like that. Old Reino would hopefully have some valuable salvage for us, or maybe even the Ministry of Awesome Hub when we found it, if it was supposed to be full of all sorts of weaponry.

“I could armor it for you,” Foxglove offered, her expression hopeful.

I considered that option for a moment. It would be rather nice to keep the Wonderbolt motif going when I came to the rescue of some ponies in trouble. That had felt pretty amazing, really, “I guess that could―ah!” I groaned, clutching my hooves to my head as something akin to a spasm wracked my body. The nearby unicorn’s eyes widened in concern, but whatever it was passed nearly as quickly as it had appeared and the discomfort was gone. I waved away the violet mare’s concern, “I’m fine,” I assured her, “and...no, I won’t be needing it anymore,” it was just a flashy old costume anyway, “like I said: I’m not really a Wonderbolt. It’d be weird to wear their old uniform.”

“I see. Could I have it anyway? I might be able to use it for raw material is some of my other projects,” she didn’t seem convinced that I was alright, but she didn’t push the issue further.

“That’s fine with me,” I shrugged, “it’s not like anypony would pay a lot of bits for an old costume anyway.”

It would be a stretch to say that Foxglove was satisfied with that answer, but she seemed to at least accept it, and I passed her the crumpled up blue unitard from my saddlebags. The Gale Force rig was still attached to it. I could have used it to allow myself to fly despite my bound wing―that was what it had been partially designed for after all―but I couldn’t justify burning through the spark batteries for that. They weren’t the easiest things to come by, and I wasn’t going to waste them by using the rig for something as trivial as traveling. She returned to working on the helmet and I sought out Starlight Glimmer, who was munching down on the remains of a bag of alfalfa crisps.

She glanced up at my approach and offered me a broad smile, and the bag of crisps, “hungry?” she asked, patting the ground next to her as she invited me to join her.

I wasn’t but I took one of the flaky green chips anyway to be polite, “thanks.”

“What’s on your mind? Still feeling any lingering sense of loss?”

“A little,” I admitted, frowning, “headaches too. Is that normal?”

The pink unicorn nodded, looking at me with her sympathetic blue eyes, “it’s a rare but documented early side effect, yes. Remember: you’ve had a very fundamental piece of who you were removed. It’s not going to be an easy transition,” she placed a hoof around my shoulders and gave me a brief hug, “but you aren’t alone. I’ll be here every step of the way to make sure you make it, and learn to embrace this new you.”

I nodded absently, “I just...I don’t feel like, well, me.”

“And that’s a good thing!” Starlight assured me, giving my shoulders a squeeze to emphasize the point, “you hated ‘you’, remember? You said yourself that your mark was compelling you to do horrible things. With a mark like that, I think that the less like ‘you’ that you feel, the better!”

I suppressed a wince, biting back the impulse to correct her. Killing had never felt like a ‘compulsion’. I’d always hated having to kill anypony; even raiders to some extent. I just wanted other ponies to be safe. That wasn’t the point though, was it? My cutie mark had been a weapon impaling a heart. I was supposed to kill ponies.

A heavy sigh escaped my lips, “I guess I’m just anxious for this ‘new me’ to finally figure out who she is so I can stop thinking about the past,” I glanced back at my own flank, “so, how does this eventually work? Do I get a new cutie mark later, or…?”

“Oh, no no no,” Starlight shook her head, “that is your new mark. The mark of mediocrity,” she explained, “from now on you’re a perfectly average pony in every way. You’ll never have anything to be upset about when it comes to special talents and the drawbacks that come with them.”

Mediocrity, huh? I guess there wasn’t anything wrong with being average. Average ponies weren’t expected to kill others, right?

“And those headaches will go away eventually?”

“Once you’ve fully adjusted to the new you,” the mare confirmed, flashing a reassuring smile.

“And how long will that take?”

“Well, it varies from subject to subject, but it goes much smoother and more accepting you are of the change. That means: no thinking about your old life, not thinking about your old cutie mark, and not trying to assert your old talent. Since your old talent was killing, I’m not sure if that’s going to be easy or hard out here,” she frowned, looking out at the Wasteland, “perhaps if you stayed in town for a few weeks…”

I shook my head, “not an option. The longer we wait, the longer the war between the Republic and the Rangers goes on. The sooner we help them end it, the better off the the ponies in this valley will―” I winced again, rubbing my head, “be…” the pain passed after a few seconds, “then we can let Princess Luna worry about what to do about Arginine’s stable.”

Starlight eyed me for a moment and then nodded, “that seems sensible. So what do you intend to do when we’ve found the MoA stockpile and given it to the Republic?”

If she’d asked me a week ago, I’d have said that I was going to help them fight off those Stable ponies. But now? I could honestly care less about how all of that was handled. Surely the NLR knew what was best and would take care of things. Me? “I’m...not sure.”

“Well, you probably only have a week or two to figure it out,” she pointed out, sharing a knowing look, “you might want to put some real thought into it.”

“What are you going to do?”

The unicorn’s expression dimmed, “...I’m hoping I can learn what happened to Moonbeam at the hub. I’m sure she’s long dead, whatever happened two hundred years ago,” she sighed and wiped at her nose. It was my turn to show some empathy now, “once I know what happened to her...I’ll make my way back to the Crystal Empire, and find out what happened to my husband.

“I know it doesn’t really matter,” she went on with a small shrug, sniffling, “dead is dead. I just need to know how. I need to know it was quick; that neither of them suffered. Bury them, if they need to be. If nothing’s left I’ll just...hold a memorial I guess.”

I leaned into the mare, feeling her return the gesture as she sniffed, “I know what it’s like to lose family,” I told her, draping my good wing over her back, “fair warning: the hurt never goes away completely.”

She nodded, “I know,” she said before drawing in a shaky breath, “I just need a chance to say ‘goodbye’. That’s the part that hurts the most, you know? I didn’t know that the last time I saw them was going to be the last time…”

The last time I’d really seen Jackboot he’d been getting ridden by Foxglove. I’d been devastated. I’d been ashamed, and angry, and hurt. It had driven me into the hooves of a stallion that I’d barely known, but had looked enough like Jackboot that I thought I’d be able to pretend it was the pony I’d actually cared about. Then things had gone wrong...so terribly wrong. My next memory of the rusty brown stallion after that was him being enveloped in a green flash of magical fire that consumed both him and his murderous sister.

It had never even occurred to me that I would ever need to say ‘goodbye’ to Jackboot after the sorts of things that we’d survived over the years.

Losing my parents hadn’t been much different. We’d been sitting down to breakfast like we always did, when the Brahmin started making a racket. Pa had stepped outside to see what was upsetting them, thinking a bloatsprite was harassing the herd again. Then he started yelling for my brother to get the guns. Ma hadn’t wasted a moment, rushing me out to the barn and telling me to stay out of sight beneath the hay until the danger had passed.

After that, my memory was a swirl of gunshots and screaming. A lot of screaming.

I hadn’t thought to say ‘goodbye’ to any of them either that morning.

Then I’d found my mother again. I had been so wrapped up in feelings of relief that she was still alive that it had never crossed my mind that I’d lose her all over again almost immediately.

“...I know what you mean,” I said softly, feeling my eyes starting to burn with tears that threatened to fall, “you just have to remember that they cared about you; and that they knew you cared too.”

Starlight nodded and wiped at her eyes. Fortunately, I managed to get myself under control before it came quite to that point, “you’re right. Thank you, Windfall.”

“What are friends for?” I smiled wanly up at the two-century displaced mare.

She chuckled, “I can’t say I ever had enough of those to know for sure,” she admitted, “but I think I’m starting to figure it out.”

Somepony was clearing their throat from nearby and we looked up to see Ramparts packing up his own small meal, “if the two of you are done, we really do need to keep going,” the gruff Republic courser said.

Everypony gathered together the remains of their snacks or work and we resumed our trek towards Old Reino.

“What happened to this place?” Starlight asked as we carefully picked our way through the empty streets of the city.

Ramparts answered from his place at the head of our short line, “the same thing that happened to every other city: The Great War.”

“I mean, this doesn’t look like a balefire attack,” the pink unicorn explained, “all of the buildings look way too intact for that.”

“That’s because it wasn’t all balefire,” the Republic soldier said, “the zebras co-opted an Equestrian megaspell. This city’s full of wandering radiation pockets that can fry a pony in minutes. I have the Republic’s most recent maps; but that doesn’t mean a whole lot. Everypony stay on their hooves.”

“Which way is it to the MAS hub?” I asked Starlight, keeping an ear to my pipbuck’s geiger counter.

“Umm...the next right, I think?”

“You think?” Ramparts glanced back at the mare, not bothering to hide his displeasure at their ‘guide’s’ lack of certainty. The last thing that any of them needed was to get lost in this deathtrap of an abandoned city.

“It’s been a long time since I was here last,” she winced.

“Two hundred years, give or take,” I quipped, in an effort to lighten the mood. This earned me an annoyed look from the brown stallion, and a wince from Starlight.

“I mean besides that,” she said.

“I think that’s a hospital over there if anypony thinks we should check it for useful supplies,” Foxglove pointed her hoof at a nearby building. I looked over and noted the mostly barricaded entrance...which had a distinctly odd arrangement that made it seem almost like somepony had been a lot more interested in keeping something in instead of keeping others out. I probably just wasn’t close enough to make sense of the setup, because that couldn’t possibly have been right. What could anypony possibly want to keep from getting out of a hospital?

“Maybe on our way out,” I suggested, “we really shouldn’t let ourselves get too distracted just yet, and we’ve got all the medicine we need,” or should need anyway. After all of the shopping that we’d done in Seaddle, our supply situation with regards to ammunition and healing potions was looking pretty good; though our finances were struggling a bit. Hopefully the MAS hub had something valuable in the way of salvage to help address that.

The sensation of something snapping beneath my hoof made me hesitate and look down to identify what it had been. I cocked my head as I saw what appeared to be some sort of wooden stick, which struck me as an odd thing to see in the street, as I couldn’t recall seeing any trees around. I glanced at our surroundings and confirmed that, indeed, there didn’t seem to be an obvious source for the stick. Only a few more seconds of speculative thought were spared for this anomaly before I jogged to catch up with the others.

We only had to backtrack twice before we were standing outside a building whose glass doors were emblazoned with the frosted silhouette of the symbol for the Ministry of Arcane Science. The structure itself stood nearly a dozen stories tall had managed to retain most of its faded purple coloring. Had it not been for the other similarly sized buildings in this part of the city, it would have been much easier to spot from a distance with its unique color scheme.

I craned my head up, noting how odd it felt to have to do so. Not flying was really starting to get old, “I don’t suppose you know where what we’re looking for will be in there?”

Starlight Glimmer thought for a moment, “if we were looking for an Image or Peace hub, we could just look up those addresses in a public phone book. Morale’s not shy about most of their facilities either, come to think about it. Wartime Technology and Awesome were a lot more...discreet, given the kind of things they tended to get involved in.

“We should be able to find a list of locations for all the local hubs on the main servers. They’ll probably be encrypted, but I have sufficient clearance to access that level of information.”

“How do we get to the servers?”

“Just find a working terminal.”

I looked at the mare in mild surprise, “really, that’s it?” we probably wouldn’t even need to go any further than the lobby to find what we were after.

“That’s it,” Starlight confirmed and headed for the door.

They weren’t even locked. Once the five of us were inside, I found that I very much needed to reevaluate my expectations regarding the Ministry of Arcane Science. I’d been inside a few other Ministry facilities up to this point, but most of those had been MWT and MoA administered locations. As Starlight had suggested, they apparently operated under some significantly different guidelines compared to the others. This place felt less like a weapons development plant, and more like a...library?

I mentioned as much to Starlight. The pink unicorn mare merely shrugged, “The MAS is―was―focused on spell research and development. You don’t make new magic the same way you make a new gun. A lot less heavy machinery is required, and a lot more understanding of things like ley lines and iambic pentameter.”

“You’re a bit what?”

“Incantation evocation rhythms,” Starlight said, which didn’t explain things any more clearly for me than whatever it was she had said before. The unicorn sighed, and in a mildly exasperated tone chanted, “to aid these ponies sight, let there be sufficient light.”

Her horn then began to glow with cyan light, which quickly peaked and flooded the dim lobby with pale light. I blinked at the sight and raised my remaining brow, “unicorns cast magic using poetry?”

Starlight glowered at me, “no. That’s not even close to how it works,” Foxglove and Arginine were likewise shaking their heads and giving me disapproving looks, “but if it’s easier for you to think of it like that; then sure: poems let us use magic.”

“What?” I glanced at the trio of unicorns, “what do I know about how unicorn magic works? It’s not like you guys are always muttering when you do stuff with your horns!”

“Not out loud, no,” Foxglove admitted, to which Arginine added his nodded assent, “Starlight’s right though. It might be easier for you to think about it like that. I guess it’s hard to explain to somepony who’s not a unicorn.”

“As enlightening as this is,” Ramparts intoned, drawing a frown from Starlight beneath her glowing horn as she wondered if the pun had been intentional or not, “can we continue the lesson on unicorn magic later and access a terminal so we can leave?”

“That’s going to be easier said than done,” Foxglove said, pointing her hoof at the ceiling, and the darkened light fixtures which explained the need for the other unicorn mare’s light magic, “power’s out. No power: no terminals.”

It did indeed turn out that the few computer terminals in the front lobby, located on the reception desk, were completely dead. They didn’t appear to be damaged in any way, just without a working source of electricity. The mechanic mare glanced at Starlight, “a place like this has a backup generator, right?”

“It’s a government building, so it should,” the other mare nodded.

“Probably in the basement,” Foxglove said, already looking around for the stairs, “I should be able to get it working in no time.”

“Alright,” I jabbed a hoof at Ramparts, “go with Foxglove and get power back online. The three of us are going to search the place for anything valuable.”

“Is it wise for us to divide our forces like that?” Asked Arginine.

“There aren’t any blips on my EFS. Ramparts and I can keep in contact through our pipbucks if anything comes up. When the power comes back up, Starlight can access the nearest terminal, get the info, and we can head back to the lobby; just in time to meet back up with Foxglove and Ramparts and head back out of the city.

“I don’t want us to be in a place like this any longer than we absolutely need to in case a rad storm comes around,” we had a generous stock of Rad-X and RadAway that had been divided up between everypony just in case; but even those things wouldn’t be much help if we got caught by anything more than the edges of one of the potent wandering pockets of magical radiation.

The gray stallion acknowledged the reasoning for my plan and made no further objections. All five of us headed for the stairwell. Ramparts and Foxglove heading down, while the rest of us took the next flight up. Just as Starlight had indicated, the hub was arranged much more in the vein of a book repository than a factory. We passed by many doors as we wandered the halls, each bearing placards that identified various magical subjects, and that lead into rooms lined with books and rolled scrolls.

“Wouldn’t it be more efficient to keep all of that stuff on terminals?” I asked after seeing the fourth such shelf-filled room, “it’d take up a lot less space.”

“Some of the simpler stuff can be, yes, and often is,” Starlight explained, “but more advanced evocations―the sort of things powerful enough to help in a war―can’t be transcribed onto a terminal quite so easily. Anything that requires drawing on things like crystal veins or ley lines needs to be written in a very specific format that’s hard to replicate on a computer screen.”

“What’s so hard about writing poetry on a terminal?”

The pair of unicorns winced, “...maybe that was a bad metaphor to give you,” she tapped her hoof to her chin as she thought for a few moments, “it’s not really about the words themselves. It’s about...um…”

“Aesthetic,” Arginine supplied, to which the pink unicorn agreed. Not that the unfamiliar word did me any service, “how something looks.”

“Don’t they just look like words?”

“Perhaps some visual aides are in order,” Starlight Glimmer stepped into the nearest room and beckoned the pair of us to follow her. We stepped inside, and I noted the sign that identified this section as being one that contained works related to something called, ‘Oraculic Arcana’. Starlight gestured towards a table in the center of the room as she pulled a scroll from one of the ancient shelves and unfurled it on the dusty surface. I craned my head to peer at the writing on the aged vellum, and I was pretty sure that I could already see what these two had been talking about.

“That is the strangest writing I’ve ever seen,” I noted, drawing a smile from the pink unicorn.

“It barely even looks like words, doesn’t it?”

She wasn’t wrong. Looking at the scroll now, I determined it was fair to say that none of what the scroll contained was actually ‘writing’, but was more like...pictures that sort of looked like words. Actually, they were barely ‘pictures’, since they didn’t resemble particular objects. They were just sort of random looking shapes. But, “why does it have to look like that?”

“This is the pattern that that spell needs to take in order for it to be cast,” Starlight explained, “unicorn horns allow us to manipulate the innate magical energies contained in our bodies, and in some cases the world around us, to evoke―cast―spells.

“However, trying to remember a bunch of convoluted shapes like this can be pretty hard for most unicorns. So, we get a little creative with them. With just a little subtle alterations they can be read sort of like words, and that makes it easy to visualize the component phrases in our heads.”

I studied some of the ‘writing’ for a bit longer, noticing something else, “...they sort of look like that stuff that’s carved on talismans.”

“Very good,” Starlight said, looking at me approvingly, “you’re exactly right. The difference there, of course, is that talisman glyphs don’t need to be altered to resemble words and phrases. They can be completely accurate representations of the spell’s purpose. That’s why talisman magic is often more potent and persistent than unicorn magic. It’s...more pure, I guess you could say.

“So, you’re not thinking about real words when you cast spells. You’re thinking about this stuff,” I pointed my good wing at the parchment, “but that doesn’t explain why unicorns don’t need to say it out loud.”

“The words aren’t what’s important,” Starlight said, “it’s the visualization of the lines. For things like telekinesis and light spells, and anything simple like that, there’s usually only a single ‘glyph’ involved, and any unicorn that uses it often has little problem remembering what it looks like.

“Uncommonly cast spells, or magic that needs to have multiple simultaneous effects might need to be recited by the caster to help them ‘weave’ the magic in the correct manner as they try to recall the correct glyphs in the correct order.”

“The propensity for rhyming is to aid in recall and flow,” Arginine added.

“Exactly,” the other unicorn confirmed, “not really a big deal with short spells again; but if you have something really complicated that requires a half dozen or more intricate glyphs, it’s easier to remember a limerick or sonnet than just a random list of nonsense.”

“Unicorn magic is somehow both a lot simpler, and a lot more complicated, than I thought,” I admitted.

“I’m sure I would have much the same to say about flying,” Starlight acknowledged.

That was fair, I suppose. I could see almost exactly where these two were coming from now when it came to explaining something innate to myself to a pony with no easy personal reference point. If an earth pony had ever asked me how I went about flying, I would probably have just replied with, “I flap my wings and go,” but the reality was far more complicated than that. Trying to break down all of the little things that I did almost by instinct when it came to subtly shifting my pinions around during certain aerobatic maneuvers would have taken me months to explain, and have required a hundred or more visual aids.

“I don’t suppose that these scrolls are valuable to ponies?” I asked, looking around at the shelves full of ancient volumes of arcane knowledge.

“That’s hard for me to know for sure,” Starlight admitted, “I know that a pony like me would have paid a fortune to gather together the magical knowledge contained in a place like this,” she was wearing a wan smile, “I spent most of my early adult life working tirelessly to gather even a fraction of this collection.

“But I don’t know what the ponies of this world would be willing to pay for it,” the pink mare admitted, “a lot of it is purely academic in nature,” she gestured at the scroll in front of her, “there isn’t even a spell on this one. It’s just a lengthy examination of the theory behind a specific glyph and the history behind its development into its modern form.

“Probably just some unicorn’s dissertation to get their degree in Arcane Glyphology, or Magical Theory, or something.”

I didn’t know the going rate for magical spells in the Valley either. Not only had I never taken the time to shop at any store that catered to unicorns, I wasn’t even aware of any such shop existing. The closest I could think of to some place like that was a talisman repair shop, and given what Starlight had just said about talisman inscriptions being different from what was on these scrolls, I wasn’t convinced that we’d get much of a deal on any of this information from one of them.

“It’s hard to believe that there isn’t anything worthwhile in a place like this,” I said, frowning, “it’s a Ministry hub for Celestia’s sake!”

“There’s plenty that’s ‘worthwhile’ here,” Starlight said defensively, “I just don’t know if ponies out there would be willing to pay for it, or how much. Maybe not this room in particular,” she amended, glancing at the labels on the shelves, “but I can think of a few books I’d like to take with us.”

“Well, we might as well do that then. Where are they?”

Starlight glanced at the as yet still inoperable computer terminals in the room, “the directory would have been on the network. Otherwise we’ll need to look through the whole building until we find the right sections,” her expression soured now, “and that’s not going to be much of a picnic as it is.”

“Why not,” I looked around, noting the neat labeling assigned to the rows of shelves, “everything looks pretty well organized. As long as you know what you want, finding it should be a breeze.”

Starlight tapped her hoof on the unfurled scroll still lying on the table, “this is entitled: ‘Ancillary Acoustic Aural Glyphs: A Historical Perspective’,” now she jabbed her hoof at the gap on the shelf where it had once been, “I pulled it out of the ‘D’s’.”

“I...wait, what? Why?”

“I assume it’s for ‘dissertation’,” another scroll began to glow and floated out of the shelf from where it had been nestled next to the recently formed gap. Starlight skimmed over its contents, “nope. This one’s an older version of a Loqui Tirari spell,” she scrutinized the pair of scrolls, “I can understand why these two scrolls are located near each other, but I have no idea what they have to do with the letter ‘D’...”

“So we can’t figure out where the MoA hub is without first turning on the power, and we can’t find anything valuable without first turning on the power,” I sighed and rubbed my temple, “I guess we may as well have gone with Foxy and Ramps after all.”

“So, does that mean you want to go back down, or…?” Starlight’s questioned trailed off and quickly became moot as the lights flickered on, and the pair of terminals let out sharp, abrupt, tones as their screens began to scroll with strings of letters and numbers before finally coming to rest on the familiar starting screen of most typical systems.

I brought my pipbuck to my mouth and keyed it in to communicate with Ramparts, “Good work, guys. That was quick.”

There was a short hiss, and then I heard the gruff stallion’s reply, “turns out there wasn’t much to it.”

A more distant sounding Foxglove chimed in, “nothing was wrong with the generators; they were just disconnected from the main power conduits. All we had to do was plug in a couple of connections and close the main breaker and the system kicked on the moment it detected the building wasn’t getting any power from the main grid,” there was a brief pause, “I’m actually kind of surprised. It’s really small. I wouldn’t have thought something this tiny could power a whole building.”

“I guess we get lucky sometimes and things are easy,” I said, then turned to see Starlight already logging into one of the terminals. Her personal credentials seemed to be working just fine, “looks like we’ll be done in just a few minutes too. Meet us in the lobby.”

“Roger that,” Ramparts replied, “Foxglove wants to salvage some spare components while we’re here.”

“Sounds good. I’ll call again when we’re done,” I cleared the channel and walked over to where the pink unicorn was seated, “any luck?”

“Yes, and no,” the unicorn replied, not looking up from the screen, “I guess these terminals aren’t connected to the right servers. I have access to the full book directory, and I’ve found out where the books I want are; but I’ll need to get on an actual admin terminal in order to find out secure ministry locations.”

“Where would we find one of those?”

“Manager offices would have them,” Starlight replied simply, “they’re on the top floor,” she stepped away from the keyboard and headed for the door, “let’s go.”

At least we were able to take the elevators, now that the power for the building was back. I had not envied the prospect of having to traipse up eight flights of stairs. The top floor of the hub was a vastly different arrangement from the other floor that we had visited. There were no shelves of books up here, just offices and...a large marble circle built into the floor? I asked Starlight about it.

“A ritual circle,” she supplied absently, not sparing it a second glance as she headed for the nearest office’s terminal, “multipurpose,” she gestured at an altar that bore a myriad of sticks of what turned out to be chalk in various sizes and colors, along with several bowls of crushed gemstones, “you’ll find one or more of them in any MAS building.”

“What’s it for?”

“Like I said: multipurpose,” the unicorn sat down at a desk and started tapping away at the keyboard, “mass teleportation. Long distance communication. Even city defence, I suppose, if you had the right unicorns onsite.

“You can even use it to brew some tea.”

“Brew tea?” I asked, not hiding my skepticism, “what’s wrong with a kettle and a hotplate?”

“Nothing,” Starlight admitted, “and using a ritual circle to make hot water would be an obscene waste of resources, but hypothetically you could use it for that; and anything else, provided you know the glyphs.

“I’m in,” the pink unicorn said, by way of changing the subject. She was silent for a few long seconds as she tapped further commands into the terminal, “it looks like the local MoA hub is in…” her voice trailed off, and she sat up in her seat behind the desk, looking at the screen with a perplexed expression.

“What’s wrong,” I stepped around to get a look at what was being shown to the mare, and my features probably very closely approximated hers, “wait...isn’t that…?”

“That’s the bunker where you found me,” Starlight finished, her tone sounding just as dumbfounded as her features suggested, “but...that’s not right. That wasn’t a hub facility; and it was barely an MoA facility!”

“Are you sure you’re in the right file?”

“I am, but…look, more of this is wrong too. Right here,” she jabbed a hoof at the screen, “look at the communication directory; there are names of ponies there that were never at the bunker!”

“And no sign of ‘Treehugger’, either,” I noted.

Starlight skimmed the list of names and contact numbers again, “you’re right. A lot of other ponies are missing too. Somepony falsified the information here.”

“Obviously not all of it,” I pointed out to the mare, “we know that the place itself exists, and that it’s where this computer says it is. But then why make up the names of the ponies that work there?”

“They aren’t made up,” the unicorn said after a brief moment’s hesitation as she caught what I’d been musing, “I recognize most of the names, and I’ve met one or two of them; just not there. These are real MoA personnel, and those have to be the real numbers to get in contact with them; otherwise when the ponies here ever tried to call them up, they’d know something was wrong.

“This just means that the Ministry of Awesome was keeping the location of their real hub a secret, even from the other Ministries,” Starlight did not sound as though she were the least bit amused by that particular revelation, “and Rainbow Dash continues to find new ways of fucking with me long after she’s dead. If I didn’t hate her so much, I’d be impressed,” the pink mare let out an exasperated sigh and hung her head.

“How does that even work? Wouldn’t somepony notice it wasn’t a real hub once they went there?”

The unicorn thought for a moment and then shook her head, “honestly? Probably not. Not for an Awesome hub, anyway,” the mare frowned, “all of the other Ministries had very clear purposes: Arcane Science did spell research, Image shaped public opinion, Peace treated the wounded, Wartime Technology built weapons, and Morale kept tabs on dissidents. As such, they all had facilities that supported those focuses.

“Awesome was...different,” Starlight said with a grimace, “nopony really knew what they did do; besides ‘awesome things’,” she adopted what I presumed was a sarcastic parody of the Ministry Mare Rainbow Dash, going briefly wall-eyed as she did so, “I mean, there were the Shadowbolts, sure; and there were a lot of clues that suggested Awesome engaged in some covert actions, but there wasn’t a lot that was ever officially published about the Ministry.

“No two Ministry of Awesome hubs looked alike. Canterlot was a warehouse. Hoofington was a Shadowbolt barracks, I think. Somepony once told me their Trottingham hub was a theme park! So, no, I doubt anypony would have thought twice about the Neighvada jub as being a tiny little bunker in the mountains.”

“So, how do you know that it wasn’t their hub?” I asked.

“Because I overheard some of the Awesome pegasi there talking about the Neighvada hub being someplace else. I never found out exactly where, and I honestly never really tried to since it hardly seemed like it mattered,” the unicorn glared at the terminal screen, “I kind of wish I had now, if I’d known we’d hit a dead end like this.”

“There’s got to be another way,” I said, not willing to believe that we’d come all this way only to fail, “isn’t there any other information about the MoA on these computers?”

“This is nearly everything,” Starlight shrugged, tabbing through several screens, “contact lists, location―which we know is a lie―delivery schedules, inter-ministry memos―”

“Wait! Go back!” I perked up, moving in closer to the terminal. I might have just found the work-around that we needed.

“Really? It’s mostly just updates to contact lists as personnel get rotated around, nothing that helps with what we’re looking for...”

“Not the memos. The deliveries! What were they?”

“Uh…” Starlight returned to the appropriate screen and started to glance over the contents, “looks like the MoA was looking to get some prototype talismans made, along with some other magically sensitive equipment. That’s fairly typical, actually. Awesome and Wartime Technology were the usual recipients of a lot of MAS breakthroughs in arcane engineering. Your pipbuck was a fairly early product of that sort of cooperative effort. Shipping this stuff isn’t unusual. I don’t see how it could help.”

I tapped the screen, grinning from ear to ear, “it does when they include the shipping codes!”

Starlight was still unconvinced, “but that code doesn’t contain any useful information,” she insisted, “it’s just so that the carrier that delivered it can collect their fee.”

“And the carrier would have that code on their own computers, right?”

“Of course they would. They’d probably use it to track the package in their own system,” a measure of comprehension dawned on the mare, “...so if we can find out who delivered those packages, and accessed their computers, they might have recorded where they took the packages to!” her expression soured somewhat, “but they could have used any number of shipping companies. Unless you know what...” she leaned in and peered at one of the columns, “WRWF is?”

“Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” I was still grinning. The best part was that the fake freight company wasn’t that far away from here.

Starlight hadn’t even needed to read out the acronym for me to be fairly confident of who it was that had handled the shipments. After all, if your facility is so secret that you won’t even tell the other Ministries where it is, then who better to have deliver your mail than the shipping company that is actually staffed by your own agents? I was pretty sure that the destination addresses in the Wind Ryder Wagons and Freight computers were going to be fake as well―we’d learned that much already from the last time we were there. However, we had also learned that they kept accurate track of their flight hours. I’d be able to get a good idea of where their shipments were actually heading as long as Foxglove was able to recover enough of the data from their system.

“Save a copy of that entire list onto my pipbuck,” I told the unicorn, plugging in the cord that would link it to the computer. She tapped in a short sequence, and a moment later I received a flash of confirmation in the upper left corner of my vision that the data had been successfully stored onto my pipbuck, “awesome! Now let’s go collect your books and meet the others in the lobby.”

“Okay,” the unicorn logged off the system, as though it wasn’t even a conscious thought, and the three of us trotted to the elevators again, the unicorn announcing happily “sixth floor: Grimoires and Tomes of the Pre-Sisters Era. Filed under: V,” then Starlight’s chipper mood shifted suddenly to become more dour, “for: ‘Very Old Spells’.”

I cocked my head slightly as the elevator’s doors began to close, “...wouldn’t any spell from that long ago be ‘very old’?” I asked.

Starlight sighed, “there was also an ‘R’ section that stood for ‘Really Old Spells’, so...”

“What’s the difference?” I asked after a moment of thought as I tried to process whether or not there was some obvious distinction that I had missed.

“Who the fuck knows…”

The pink unicorn mare led us to the room on the sixth floor where she’d found the books that she was looking for, muttering their titles to herself as she pulled them from the shelf, “Clover the Clever’s Compendium of Creative Conjurations…”

“Try saying that three times fast,” I snorted from where I was waiting by the door, but Starlight gave no indication that she had heard me.

“...Classical Charms, an Anthology,” she continued, floating a second thick volume from the shelf and into her satchel, “and The Caster’s Companion: A Comprehensive Collection of Common Cantrips,” with the third sturdy reference guide securely tucked away in her bag, Starlight cast one last wistful look back at the rows of books and started for the exit.

I looked back and forth between the pink unicorn and the collection of books, “wait...all of those were filed under ‘V’?” I asked, noting that the wooden shelves contained labels that denoted every letter in the alphabet.

“Yup,” the mare replied in an even tone.

“Not ‘C’.”

“Nope.”

Curious, I stepped over to the section that I would have assumed to have been the appropriate one and read the first title that I saw there, “...Timeless Transmutations?”

“Don’t think about it too much!” Starlight yelled from the hall. I was inclined to heed her advice. Perhaps it was just one more of those things about magic that was hard for anypony that wasn’t a unicorn to grasp. I left the little mystery behind and trotted after the other mare.

Once in the corridor, I paused again and glanced up at the ceiling, squinting slightly, “...do the lights seem brighter to you?”

Arginine, who had been waiting in the hall nodded, “they have been growing steadily brighter since they first came on.”

Starlight craned her head upwards too, “maybe it just took them a while to warm up? They have been off for two hundred years, right?”

That sounded like a plausible enough explanation, so I shrugged it off and the three of us got back onto the elevator and returned to the lobby. Once more on the ground floor, we found Foxglove and Ramparts waiting for us. The Republic soldier was keeping an eye on the door, while the violet unicorn mechanic was tapping away at one of the consoles behind the reception desk.

I walked up to her, “anything interesting?”

“Mostly appointments and staff memos,” the mare responded, not glancing up from the terminal’s screen, “I’m not expecting to find out much; I just figured I’d poke around and see if they were keeping any neat projects here.”

“It looks like anything really interesting was shipped out to the MoA hub,” I informed the mare, “which... we still don’t know the exact location of,” Foxglove glanced up, frowning. I quickly added, “but I think we can figure it out back at that Wind Ryder place. Do you remember how much of their shipping records were intact?”

The unicorn’s frown deepened, “not many,” she said, “but those files were in better shape than most of their system. I can try to piece more of them back together. Is that our next stop?” she bent back to the console and tapped a few more keys, continuing to browse through the system.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “and I think we can spare a detour through that hospital we passed earlier if you guys still want.”

“Oh...fuck!”

I jerked, looking back at the violet mare in surprise, “I mean, we don’t have to. I just thought―”

Foxglove jumped up and started for the stairs, “I need to get back to the basement. Now. We fucked up!”

“Huh? How?” I stared after the violet unicorn as she headed away at the brisk canter.

“That generator was disconnected for a reason,” she replied, “apparently it was some new ‘experimental’ model. That’s why it was so small: hyper-efficient design. But, if it doesn’t run at full capacity, it eventually goes into a feedback loop and explodes!”

Well...that wasn’t good, “yeah, let’s turn it off. We got what we needed any―”

“Everypony quiet!” Ramparts hissed, gesturing sharply with his hoof. We all closed our mouths and turned to look at the Republican guard pony. He was staring out through the glass doors, scanning carefully out across the road. I looked down at the compass on my pipbuck, but I couldn’t see any blips that didn’t obviously belong to any of us. There certainly wasn’t any red that was visible.

Quietly, I made my way closer to the brown stallion in an effort to see if I could identify what had drawn his attention. In a hushed voice, I asked, “what is it?”

“I heard something,” he replied in a tone what was just as soft. His head was hovering close to the trigger bit of his battlesaddle, ready to bite down on the trigger the moment a threat popped into view.

“I don’t see anything on my EFS,” I noted.

“Neither do I, but pipbucks don’t see everything.”

“They don’t?” that was news to me; and it was information that I wish somepony had provided me with a long time ago. I spared a brief glance back at Foxglove, who had been the pony to instruct me―however briefly―on their functions.

“Not quite. Stealthbucks confuse them. Somepony being really quiet and careful when they move can avoid being detected too. There are even a couple critters that don’t always show up, until it’s too late.”

“Awesome,” though my sour tone suggested that, in truth, I did not find this new revelation to be particularly ‘awesome’, “so, if something’s waiting outside for us...Starlight, is there a back door?”

“I assume,” the mare shrugged. The pink unicorn looked over at reception terminal, “there should be some floor plans on there.”

Foxglove was prancing uneasily near the stairs leading down, “guys, not to put too fine a point on it. But there is basically a bomb in the basement.”

“It’s too risky,” Ramparts said, shaking his head, “if whatever it is attacks while you’re down there, you’ll be trapped with no way out.”

“The last thing we want to do is get separated right now anyway,” I mused, my eyes still mimicking the earth pony’s as we kept our attention focused outside, “and if we all go to the basement, then we’ll all be trapped. How big an explosion are we talking about?”

“Beats me. It might just collapse the floor, or it could erase the whole city,” Foxglove replied in exasperation, “I don’t know the specs. I also don’t have a timetable on when it’ll blow,” she stressed, “so either let me go down there, or we need to start running.”

“I can teleport,” Starlight offered, heading for the stairwell herself, “the two of us can go down and shut it off while the rest of you run for it. We’ll meet you outside the hospital.”

“That should work,” I glanced at Ramparts for confirmation of the soundness of the plan and got a curt nod. I looked to the unicorn mares, “go turn off the generator,” I was already heading for the reception desk by the time they’d vanished from sight. I started tapping keys in order to locate the building’s floor plans and find out where the other exits were. The last thing we wanted was to get lost in here.

All three of us jerked erect as we heard the sound of glass shattering from somewhere in the building. It was hard to peg down an exact location or direction as the sound reverberated through the halls and corridors of the Ministry of Arcane Science hub. Not that any of us was afforded much in the way of time to figure out where exactly it had come from before there was a nearly identical sound that came from much closer to where we currently were.

I turned my head towards the source of the new sound just in time to see a tree fall on top of Ramparts.

No, that wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t a tree, per say. It actually looked more like a pile of branches. Only this pile of branches had legs and a head with a mouth that was full of thorny teeth. There were also a pair of brilliantly glowing golden eyes that brought the whole look together.

For several seconds, I merely stood there in shocked silence as the collection of lumber tackled the earth pony to the floor and roared in his face. My pipbuck continued to insist that there was nothing malicious in that direction, but Ramparts’ frantic yelling and bucking contended that there was. My own personal senses confirmed as much as well. The ferocious snarling, the fetid stench of its breath, and the grooves that its seemingly wooden ‘claws’ were gouging into the tile floor of the building all insisted that this was a very real monster that was attacking. If somepony didn’t do something soon to help Ramparts, the earth pony stallion might not fare too well.

I opened my mouth to voice a string of commands to my twin automatic weapons strapped to my sides and save the stallion’s life when a sharp pain in my head preemptively silenced me. I grunted and shook away the pain, which was already starting to pass. Along with it went the commands I had been about the issue. The sounds of howling echoed through the hallway into the lobby, announcing the approach of still more of whatever these creatures were, spurring me to action once more...

...I bolted for the stairwell and scampered up as quickly as my legs would allow, finding myself wishing that I could have flown up them in order to further increase the speed of my ascent.

The harmonious blend of roaring of both beast and automatic rifles followed me up the flights as I ascended as quickly as I could. That thing had looked utterly horrifying, and there was no way that I wanted to remain anywhere near it, or its approaching friends. Ramparts was a veteran courser, the elite of the New Lunar Republic; I was sure he’d be fine on his own. Meanwhile I had one working wing, one working eye, and an overwhelming desire not to be killed by animate bushels of sticks.

Nor had I seemed to be the only one with a desire to be elsewhere. Another set of hooves could be heard clattering up the stairs in my wake. I spared a glance and saw that it was Arginine’s hulking gray form that was following me up the flights. That made sense, seeing as how his continued existence was tied to my proximity. I ignored his thoroughly perplexed expression, attributing it to his trying to puzzle out what those things had been too, and returned my focus to getting as far away from the threat as possible.

Not that I had much in the way of an idea about what I was going to do once I ran out of stairway. Perhaps there would be somewhere up here where I could hide until those things went away and then try to sneak my way out of the city? It might not even come to that, of course. Hopefully Ramparts could deal with them and let me know when things were safe. Worse case scenario, he was killed and Arginine and I would be hunted by those monsters. In which case…

“Can you teleport?” I ask the stallion running behind me.

“No,” he replied, sounding a little confounded by the question, “that spell was not part of my magical instruction.”

“Could you do it if you saw it written out?” we were currently running through a repository of magical knowledge, after all.

“Perhaps,” he ventured cautiously.

“Perfect,” the lights went out, plunging us into darkness. I halted mid-step, as did Arginine, “less perfect.”

“It would seem that Miss Foxglove and Miss Glimmer succeeded in turning the generator back off,” the stallion noted.

“No shit,” I said, fixing a deadpan look in the direction of his voice. Then I activated my pipbuck’s flashlight and continued up the stairs at a quick, but cautious, pace. As we reach each floor, I illuminated a placard the identified its number. Once we reached the sixth, I departed the stairwell and headed for the room that Starlight had taken us to earlier.

“We should be able to find a teleport spell here somewhere…” I murmured, panning my light over the shelves and the various tomes and scrolls that they contained. I paused on the ‘T’s, “maybe...here?” I pulled out the first book and read out its title, “Legerdimain’s Lexicon of Legendarily Laborious Lithomancies,” I blinked and pushed the book back into place, “apparently not…”

My eyes scanned the rest of the sprawling shelves, not knowing where to even begin trying to track down the spell that I was after. There must have been thousands of books in this room alone. I was even just making an assumption that the spell that I was after was even in this room, as there were similar rooms on every floor. I’d just figured that since Starlight had found some actual spell books here…

My heart froze as I heard growling coming from the hall outside, “that’s not good,” I heard myself say under my breath before I clamped my lips down tightly to prevent any further sound from escaping. Could wood even hear? Over the low growling sound, I heard some rather energetic sniffing going along with it. Apparently these piles of lumber could smell, so I suppose that hearing wasn’t much of a stretch…

I backed away from the doorway, looking around frantically for someplace to hide. Of course, if they could just sniff me out anyway, I wasn’t certain how much good hiding was going to do me. With those things in the hall though, it didn’t look like running was a much better course of action. If I couldn’t hide, and I couldn’t run, then I was in really deep shit, because I wasn’t sure what else I was going to be able to do about those things.

As my panic mounted, I saw a large canine head formed of brambles slowly drift into view through the door, heavily shadowed by the soft white light from my pipbuck. It’s glowing golden eyes turned and peered into the room, locking onto me. The low growl slightly charged in pitch, somehow sounding a lot more eager and pleased than it had a moment ago.

Oh, horseapples; it was too late.

I watched in abject horror as the creature coiled back and then leaped through the open doorway, hurling itself directly at me. Petrified with fear, all I could do was stand there and watch the outstretched paws of razor-sharp briars reaching for me, prepared to rend me into bits of fleshy mulch.

There was an amber flash, and the monster’s airborne trajectory was suddenly, and violently, altered as a visible wall of energy slammed into its side and drove the beast into one of the shelves that lined the room’s walls. The force of the blow was so powerful that the creature’s body was completely shattered by the impact, sending out a shower of sticks and disheveled books. I glanced to my right with my wide, still very much frightened, eye and saw RG glaring first at the scattered fragments of the wooden monster, and then at me.

“Are your weapons malfunctioning?” he asked irritably.

“I don’t think so,” I glanced down at the pair of 10mm submachineguns nestled beneath my wings for a brief moment in an effort to try and figure out what RG had meant by his question.

“Then perhaps, in the future, would you consider using them?” he snarled at me. Then his attention was drawn to the floor. I followed his gaze and saw that one of the twigs near me was quivering. Actually, it appeared that all of the wooden remains of the monster were on the move, slowly tumbling towards the corner of the room where they were gathering together into an amorphous heap.

Something told me that it wasn’t going to remain formless for very long.

“We need to go,” Arginine stated. I found myself very much agreeing with the stallion. He went to the doorway and glanced each direction down the hall, “I can still hear shooting. We should rejoin the others.”

I shook my head, “no way! That’s where more of those things are. We need to go away from the shooting,” I insisted. This drew a rather shocked look from the large stallion. I didn’t feel like debating the point though. His collar was linked to my pipbuck, so ultimately Arginine was going to go in the direction that I did anyway, whatever his own opinions of the matter.

The pile of sticks was beginning to look a lot more like a limbed monster again, so I ceased debating and headed to the stairs once more, ascending even further. My intent now was to head for the roof. Once up there, it should be possible to make my way to one of the other buildings in the area and hopefully escape from these things. RG followed after me, though quite reluctantly.

“Windfall, it’s Ramparts; do you copy?” the haggard voice of the Republic courser crackled over my pipbuck’s speakers.

I paused to key my reply, “I’m here. What’s up?”

“Are you alright? What happened? By the time I got away you were nowhere to be seen.”

“RG and I are on our way to the roof. I figure we can get away that way.”

There was a brief moment’s pause, “I guess that’s a good idea. These things don’t stay down long,” another pause, “Bullets don’t do shit to these things―bucking either. I’m going to turn that reactor back on.”

Arginine and I exchanged brief glances, “you mean the one Foxglove said could blow up the whole city?”

“I figure there’s a good chance it’ll be a much smaller ‘boom’ than that,” the courser chuckled, “but maybe it’ll be big enough to bring down the building and bury these things. You two make your escape from the roof.”

“What about yourself?” Arginine asked from over my shoulder, looking at the pipbuck. I frowned at the larger stallion, but waited for Ramparts’ response all the same.

Another chuckle, “I’ll be fine. Not my first demo-and-ditch job. Ramparts out.”

“There, see, everypony’s fine,” I turned my attention from the pipbuck and started back up the stairs, “now let’s get out of here before this building blows up. I don’t want to be here for that,” I heard a furious roar drift up the stairwell and peered down briefly, “or those,” my pace picked up noticeably.

“You are content to let him deal with the threat on his own?” the stallion with me asked as he trotted after me.

“He says he can do it,” I shrugged, annoyed that we were still talking about this.

“I recall similar sentiments being expressed by him while confronted with the Steel Rangers,” Arginine remarked, “you interjected yourself then.”

I came to a sudden halt. My mind flooded with memories of how I’d insisted on remaining to help the Republic soldiers fend off the assault by the much more heavily armed squad of Steel Rangers that had placed them under siege. Ramparts had insisted that my aid was neither expected, nor truly required, and yet I had stubbornly remained to help them. I felt no such compulsion now though.

That’s what it had been back then: a compulsion. There had been this overwhelming need for me to help those soldiers. They had been in trouble, and I was there. The idea of turning around and doing absolutely nothing to aid them hadn’t been a thought that I’d managed to entertain for very long, as it was disdainful to me. Just as I couldn’t turn away from Summer Glade when she had been in distress. Nor Foxglove. When ponies were in trouble, I helped them. I did everything in my power to protect them, because I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting by idly while others were in trouble. I’d sat by while my family was slaughtered, and while I knew, on an intellectual level, that there wasn’t anything I could have done back then, I had sufficient ability now. I wouldn’t let anypony suffer the sort of loss that I had as a filly―

Pain shot through my head, wiping away those memories. The more I struggled to retain them, the greater the discomfort became, until I finally relented and allowed those thoughts to slip away. I grunted and rubbed my temple furiously as the pain ebbed away. Arginine looked on in concern.

“Are you ill?”

I swallowed, “I don’t know,” A long pause as I futilely tried to wrap my head around the cause of the headache. Starlight had said it should only be happening when I thought about anything to do my old cutie mark, but that mark had been about killing other ponies…

...hadn’t it? So why had I been having those headaches just now while thinking about help―ugh!

“Rampart’s can handle himself. Let’s keep moving,” I said through clenched teeth as I furiously massaged away the latest migraine.

We’d taken no more than a half dozen steps before the lights flickered back on, “that would be the power coming back on,” Arginine noted. We continued ascending, and a few seconds later I noted that many of the lights seemed to be shutting off, “and that would be breakers being opened to increase the amount of feedback into the generator.”

“The sooner we’re out of here, the better,” our resident expert on all things technical hadn’t been able to even hazard a guess as to the exact size of the detonation that would follow if that generator were allowed to remain on for too long, so I was inclined to put as much distance between myself and this building as possible. Even without the threat of an impending explosion of unknown intensity, I wasn’t interested in lingering, not with those...whatever they were prowling around here!

What in Celestia’s name was up with those things anyway? Monsters made out of sticks that could just put themselves back together again even when you pounded them into kindling?! I’d never even heard of monsters like that before. I made a note to ask Starlight Glimmer if they were the result of some sort of magical experiment being conducted by the ponies that had worked here.

The two of us made our way onto the roof of the building. Once there, I took stock of our situation. The buildings around us were of a similar height, or even a decent bit higher in some cases. Stepping to the edge I noted that they were a bit far to jump for. It would have been a completely different story if I’d had two working wings, of course, but since that wasn’t the case...

“Well, ‘up’ isn’t an option,” I said wryly, glancing at the street below, “so I guess that means ‘down’”

“That may prove difficult,” Arginine called from the other side of the roof. I trotted over and noted that the building’s fire escape had apparently long since rusted away and mostly collapsed. That might prove to be a bit of a problem, “I don’t suppose that you have devised an alternative plan of action?”

“Hope that none of those things makes it all the way to the roof and that the generator only collapses a little bit of the interior?” I offered with a smile. The larger stallion did not appear amused by my attempt at levity. You’d almost think that our lives were in mortal peril or something.

More seriously, I said, “I can get down easily enough even without my wings. Can you levitate yourself down?”

“Achieving personal flight through levitation is...difficult,” RG muttered reluctantly, “even for unicorns as powerful as my kind,” he cast a wary glance over the side and drew back almost immediately, “I am reluctant to make the attempt with such an unforgiving margin of error.”

“You don’t want to splat if you can’t pull it off.”

He grimaced, “correct.”

I eyed the large stallion, gnawing on my lower lip as I considered one possible solution. He was an unnaturally large stallion, and I was a mare who wasn’t quite fully grown yet. The size disparity between the two of us bordered on the comical, making what I was thinking almost impractical. I knew what I was capable of under normal circumstances, but what I didn’t know was the exact limits of those capabilities when pushed to limits that I doubted had been conceived of.

I really wished I’d had the Gale Force right about now...

The sound of snarling coming from behind us interrupted my train of thought and the two of us turned in time to see a full trio of those wooden creatures prowling out on the roof. All six of their beady yellow eyes were locked on us.

“Full auto, fire!” I yelled, training my weapons on them. My submachine guns snarled loudly at my sides as they spewed forth a stream of lead rounds that chewed into the monstrosities. The creatures flinched away reflexively as my rounds cut through them.

All the way through them, I noted, leaving behind hardly any significant damage at all. I glanced at the corner of my vision and my heart sank as I saw the glowing ‘AP’ next to the pair of zeroes that denoted my empty magazines. I had unloaded with armor-piercing rounds, which apparently had done little more than leave behind tiny little 10mm holes wherever they’d hit. It seemed that creatures that were capable of reassembling themselves from piles of debris weren’t all that put off by something as minute as mere holes.

The three creatures blinked, glanced at their largely unaffected bodies, looked back at me, and roared.

“Horseapples! Load, um…” would hollowpoint or explosive be better to use on them? While the emerald-tipped rounds were sure to do a number on the creatures where they hit, they would detonate immediately upon impact and do only superficial damage. Meanwhile, the specially shaped soft lead tips of the hollow-point rounds would cause them to expand as they passed through the creatures, hopefully splintering more of their interior. I didn’t get the impression that these creatures really had ‘organs’, per say, but did that mean that their insides weren’t still somehow vital? They were roaring, so did that mean they had ‘lungs’ and breathed somehow?

Then the wooden monsters were charging us down, interrupting my mental debate. They had also spread themselves out in a maneuver meant to trap us against the edge of the roof and keep us from trying to run to either side. Even if I loaded an alternative type of ammunition, I would be able to hit all of them before they got to us. We couldn’t move left, right, or forward. That left only…

They leaped into the air, arcing directly for us.

“Hold on tight!” I yelled at the stallion as I wheeled around and ducked between his legs, bucking him up onto my back. Wow, he was a big ol’ stallion! I thought very Be Strong thoughts as I took his full weight onto my withers and haunches. Arginine let out a very un-Arginine-like yelp of surprise as I bucked him up off the ground and leaped over the side of the building.

“Are you crazy?!” he screamed in actual terror―something I’d never heard from the stallion―while his forelegs reflexively clamping around my neck as he found himself suddenly airborne.

“Maybe!”

I flipped out my functional wing, catching air with it and using it to direct us back towards the building. I could do that much at least. As we turned back around, I saw three surprised looking beasts flailing through the air over us. Either they had severely misjudged how high off the ground they had been, or they simply didn’t possess a concept of ‘height’ on the scale of an office building. In any case, they seemed thoroughly surprised by how far below them the ground was, and how quickly they were now heading down to meet it.

My wing tucked back into my side once we were turned back around and I stretched out all four of my hooves, praying to Celestia that this was actually going to work and that I hadn’t just killed us both. I had never done this while bearing any respectably sized load. I knew I could do it while wearing my barding, all my weapons, and a decent amount of salvage, so I was clearly capable of supporting more than just my own weight. The question―which was about to become much more than merely academic―was how much more?

My hooves slammed against the side of the building with more force than I had been expecting. Apparently I still didn’t appreciate how massive Arginine was. Almost immediately, I felt the pair of us begin to fall along the side of the building.

I grit my teeth together and glared at the offending wall, willing my hooves to adhere to it as they had to so many other surfaces in my life. Suddenly, I no longer felt like we were ‘falling’, so much as we were being ‘dragged’ along the wall. It was akin to the sensation of standing on the ground, fighting against somepony trying to pull me backwards. I buckled down and leaned into the force that was pulling us down. My hooves ground into the ancient masonry beneath them, creating long streaks of scuffed stonework as they scraped along.

“Come on,” I groaned, trying to dig even further into the side of the building, “Come on!”

The furrows deepened as I applied even more force to the face of the building. I needed this to work, otherwise Arginine and I were both going to die!

Pain flashed through my head once more, but I fought through it this time, latching onto the knowledge that if I faltered here and now, the stallion I had dragged over the edge with me was going to die. I couldn’t let that happen―I wasn’t going to let that happen! Damn the pain to Tartarus! I was going to do this! I just needed to Be Enduring!

Those furrows deepened even further, my hooves biting a full three inches into the faded purple brickwork. This time it seemed to be enough, and I felt our speed slow steadily until we finally came to a complete stop. I merely stood there for several long seconds, panting with the effort that it was taking to keep from resuming our plumet. My attention was only drawn away briefly by the sound of splintering lumber beneath us. I spared a quick glance at the ground, noting that we had come to a stop somewhere around the fourth or fifth floor, and confirmed that none of those creatures had been as fortunate as the two of us.

For the moment anyway. It had been all I could do to bring us to a stop. I was too scared right now to move my hooves and risk losing my footing entirely in order to walk us down.

“Fascinating,” Arginine said breathlessly, swallowing back something that sounded an awful lot like fear, “I was unaware until this moment that I possessed a fear of heights,” I glanced back at the stallion clinging tightly to my back. He was a much paler gray at the moment, “I wonder if it is a psychological flaw, or a genetic oversight. I should alert the Strain Selection Committee so that they can investigate the matter in future generations…”

I tentatively tested my footing, very carefully easing one of my hooves off the side of the building in preparation to take a step. So far, so good, “don’t tell me that the Perfect Pony doesn’t like being high up,” I noted the shakiness in my own voice as I chided my passenger, “afraid of falling, are we?”

“My concern is more accurately associated with the magnitude of the deceleration forces involved upon impact with the paved surfaces below,” he said numbly.

“...You don’t want to ‘splat’.”

“I don’t want to ‘splat’,” he agreed with a nervous shake of his head.

Wow, he really must be scared. If I was being completely honest, I was a little concerned myself. I had a hard time remembering the last time I had even been afraid of falling to my death. That was something that very rarely came up for a pony who could fly, after all, “for once, RG, you and I are in complete...agreement,” I said while very carefully lifting my hoof off the building, feeling a flood of relief as the other three held, “so we’ll just very carefully...make our way down…” I placed the hoof firmly against the side of the building and began to ease off on one of my others, “...one step...at a time,” this was looking like it was actually going to work!

I spared another look down. It was going to take a while though. Hopefully those things wouldn’t manage to reform before we got there. They looked like they had been pretty thoroughly shattered by the impact of the hundred foot fall, so we might actually have that kind of time.

My ear twitched and I cokced my head as I prepared to take another step closer to the ground, “do you hear a sort of high-pitched whine?”

“Now that you mention it, I believe do detect a―”

I felt the explosion a split second before I actually heard it. It was like the wall had leaped up at me, very nearly heaving me off of my already precarious purchase on the vertical surface. Arginine gave another surprised yelp and his grip tightened to a nearly unbearable level. Then what I could only describe as the most violent rainbow that had ever existed burst out of the first and second floor windows, consuming everything in its prismatic glow.

Then we began to fall again. It wasn’t just the two of us either, I immediately realized. The whole building was going down, shattering into fragments as it did so! Perhaps even worse, the convulsing patterns of light below us didn’t seem to be intent on going anywhere anytime soon. And because bad news wasn’t complete unless it came in threes, that light was actively consuming everything that came into contact with it. Which, in a matter of seconds, was going to include us!

“It would seem that the reactor has deton―”

“You don’t say?!” It seemed that ‘down’ was no longer the preferred direction of travel. That left only ‘up’. I propelled us forward along the falling wall, not quite sure how I was supposed to outrun gravity. It would take a particularly awesome pony to accomplish something like that! A little blue pony in my head who bore a remarkable resemblance to Rainbow Dash suggested that making a leap over to a slab of falling brickwork on my left would be a pretty radical looking move right about now. I made the jump and then noticed a nice looking piece was just a hop, skip, and a jump further ahead…

I vaulted from one tumbling section of the former Ministry of Arcane Science Hub to the next, managing to stay just ahead of the deadly glow beneath us, but without gaining much additional distance. It wasn’t going to be very long before we ran of collapsing building either. This proved to be a problem that solved itself though. The generator must have been located towards the front of building, as the bulk of the tumbling tower was listing forward, tilting towards its neighbor across the street. As the angle increased further and further, so did our progress towards that other building.

My hooves scrambled along the shattered remains as they fell and were subsequently consumed by the full spectrum fire of the burning reactor. It was only by the merciful grace of Celestia that we reached the neighboring buildings, diving in through one of the windows and collapsing onto the floor. My limbs―especially my hooves―burned like they were on fire from the enormous effort it had taken to get us this far. I also felt a significant number of other sources of pain as well, along my cheeks and chest.

I was more than a little surprised that had even worked. That had to have been the coolest thing that I had ever done in my life by, like, twenty percent...at least!

Unfortunately, it seemed that we weren’t free and clear just yet. The floor we were lying on was quivering as the MAS building finished collapsing into its side. The air around us was filled with the sounds of protesting steel beams that had not been intended to withstand such massive lateral forces. I could already feel this floor starting to list and buckle under the strain. I really didn’t want to have to run again so soon…

“The soundness of this structure’s stability is questionable,” Arginine noted as he rose to his hooves. He certainly sounded like he was glad not to be perched on the side of a building anymore. Though I suspected that he would rather be somewhere that wasn’t about to start falling down around his ears, “we should be elsewhere.”

“Arginine,” I groaned as I got back up and steadied myself on my aching legs, “please stop stating the obvious. It’s getting on my nerves,” I glared back at him, noting the dozen or so bleeding laceration on his head and sides. His horn was glowing as he carefully extracted a hoof-sized shard of glass from his shoulder, wincing in pain as he did so. A quick glance down confirmed that I’d been cut up pretty good too. Nothing a healing potion wouldn’t fix though once we had a moment to take one.

The stallion clamped his mouth shut. It was unnerving to see the usually stoic stallion looking so out of sorts. I hadn’t ever thought of him as being the sort to panic. It seemed that the fall earlier had really rattled him a decent bit. I suppose that was something I could let the Republic interrogators know when I eventually passed the gray stallion over to their custody. That was later though. Right now, the two of us had other concerns. Like a second collapsing building, but with the two of us on the inside of it this time instead of the outside.

I wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse…

The ceiling heaved and groaned, a wide split appearing through the middle of it. A moment later, one side of it fell away, slamming down into the middle of the floor that were were on at the moment, creating a ramp to the next level up and spilling desks and other office supplies onto the floor we were currently on.

Worse. Things were definitely worse.

The question that needed to be answered right now was whether we went up or down―

A section of floor nearby fell away, and I could see a crimson glow shining up through the hole it left, which quickly shifted to yellow, and then to green. It seemed that the reactor’s inferno wasn’t limited to just the hub building.

Up it was!

“Up up up!” I yelled as I scrambled towards the recently created ramp. Arginine was right on my tail as we increased our distance from the all-consuming prismatic fire. I realized that this was only a short-term solution though. Inevitably, this building was going to collapse too, and then we would be right back where we’d been a minute ago; and I could already feel that I didn’t have another ‘wall climbing’ episode in me. We needed a way out of this thing before we got too high up―

Both of us clambered to a halt as the building convulsed. I was terrified that it was all about to come crashing down right then and there, but it seemed that this place had been built a little sturdier than that. Not by much though, as a significant portion of the next three floors above us pancaked on their way down, leaving behind a gaping chasm in front of us. There was no longer any further way up for us, just a forty foot tall section of bare wall that was barely being supported by a few remaining steel beams.

Through the window I could spy the next building over.

Another quiver ran through the floor, and I could feel us starting to list back towards where the MAS hub had been only a few minutes ago. That meant that this place probably wasn’t going to fall into another building.

“Load explosive rounds,” I yelled over the din of the debris that was dropping down around us. I lined up my aim on the joints of those remaining beams, “two rounds! Both barrels! Fire!” a quartet of green darts struck the joint and detonated. The steel rivets, already being strained well past their intended capabilities, shattered. The steel beams sagged away from one another. I shifted my point of aim to the next joint, “fire! Fire! Fire!”

Joint after joint fell apart as my rounds broke the pitiful remnants that had been holding them together. Soon I was looking at a slab of wall that was being held in place by crumbling bits of mortar and plaster. It would surely fall with the next tremor. The trick would be making sure that it fell the way we needed.

“RG, hit it! Hard!”

The stallion nodded, grasping what I had intended. My, what smart pony he was. A golden burst of magical telekinetic energy, very similar to what he had employed against those monsters, slammed into the section of towering wall. Massive cracks immediately appeared at its edges and the segment of dislodged wall fell away. Steel screamed and glass shattered as its fall was preemptively arrested by the side of its neighbor.

The floor heaved one more time. This was quite clearly the death rattled of the building we were in, and I didn’t need to tell Arginine to run as quickly as he could. Neither could afford to spare a moment of thought as to whether the improvised ‘bridge’ would support our weight. If it didn’t, we died. If we hesitated, we died anyway.

I extended my good wing, fluttering it slightly in an effort to lighten my steps as I darted across the crumbling surface. Arginine had enveloped himself in his own amber magic, but I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. My biggest concern was getting across this tentative expanse of quivering wall before it fell away from beneath us.

At least it had done us the favor of shattering the windows of the building we were going to so that neither of us had to get ourselves sliced up any more than we already were by crashing through it again. Once inside, I turned and looked back the way we had come, just in time to see that other building give one last shudder and then tumbled over, vanishing into that shifting swirl of color that had once been the MAS hub. For several long, tense, seconds, I stood and waited, listening and feeling for any sign that the building that we were in right this moment was going to join its brethren and collapse. However, it seemed that this once was going to remain standing in spite of the nearby carnage.

The magical fire endured for nearly another full minute before it finally began to die away and shrink into what had become a massive crater in the middle of the block. In its wake, it left behind crackling ends of exposed underground cables and anemically dribbling water and sewage from buried pipes that no emptied into the new depression.

Satisfied that we were finally safe, I let out a relieved sigh as my rump hit the ground, “I’m glad that’s over with,” I reached into my saddlebag and withdrew a pair of healing potions, keeping one for myself and passing the other to Arginine. The gray stallion drank down the draught, the cuts vanishing in a matter of seconds, leaving behind only the stains of blood on his coat. The purple fluid that I drank took away some of my aches as well, but my hooves still burned a little. Curious, I inspected them for any signs of significant injury but I couldn’t see anything that looked out of place. My pipbuck showed a very curious little symbol next to all four of my legs that I’d never seen before: a unicorn’s horn with a line through it.

I guess this thing was pretty broken if it thought that I was a unicorn with horns on my feet.

Then the speaker on it crackled, startling me. The transmission was horribly garbled though, and I could barely understand a thing that was being said. It kind of sounded like Ramparts though, “―fall, do you co―? Win―ome in.”

“Ramparts, is that you?”

“I can bare―you,” I strained my ears to try and listen through the static, but it was no good. Hardly anything was comprehensible. I banged the pipbuck against the ground a couple of times, vainly hoping that would help things. It did not, “are y―kay? Wher―ou?”

“I can’t understand what you’re saying, Ramparts,” I let out an annoyed grunt, glaring at the pipbuck, “RG and I are going to try and make our way back to the hospital to meet back up with the other. You should head that way too.”

“―geiger cou―crazy,” the stallion’s voice continued to crackle through the speakers as though he hadn’t heard what I’d been saying, “think―diation pock―get to high―”

The rest of the transmission was nothing but static after that. I glared at the pipbuck on my fetlock, waving it in the air and fiddling with the dial to see if I couldn’t improve the reception somewhat. Unfortunately, all I kept getting was louder and louder static.

Wait...that wasn’t the radio that was crackling.

My eye widened as I finally noticed the glaring crimson glyph in the corner of my vision that announced the presence of magical radiation. With the threat of imminent death by deadly magical rainbow and collapsing buildings, I hadn’t been paying much attention to what my EFS was showing me. How long had that warning even been there? Then I felt my heart stop for a beat when I noticed the number beside it was already in the upper two digits...and climbing fast. I couldn’t get the Rad-X tablets into my mouth fast enough, followed quickly by several long swallows from a bag of RadAway. I passed some tablets and a bag to Arginine, who quickly used them as well.

“We need to get somewhere else, now,” I could hear the strain in my own voice as my brain quickly tried to come up with a plan. We couldn’t stay where we were, but there wasn’t any way of knowing which direction would take us out of the path of this pocket of wandering radiation.

“I suggest increasing our elevation,” the gray stallion said, discarding his empty bag of RadAway, “the radiation should be less intense higher up.”

I wasn’t completely convinced that was the best course of action, but the growing intensity of my pipbuck’s ticking was making it very difficult to think. One thing was patently clear though: we couldn’t stay here for much longer. We bolted for the stairs. Well, I tried to bolt anyway. In spite of the healing potion and the display on my pipbuck insisting that I was in perfect health―mounting radiation poisoning notwithstanding―my legs still burned intensely whenever I tried to move them. It was like my muscles had all but locked up.

Arginine noticed that my steps faltered almost immediately as we headed for the stairwell, “are you injured?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned. It was all that I could do to maintain a pitiful little jog, and even that was causing me quite a bit of discomfort, “my legs don’t want to move, and they feel like they’re on fire!”

The number beside the radiation symbol spiked briefly above a hundred before falling back down into the low thirties. And this was in spite of the drugs that I had taken to ward off the effects. If I couldn’t get to somewhere where my exposure was in the low singles, I wasn’t going to last long. I grit my teeth together and tried to will myself to a faster pace, but it was no use. My legs just wouldn’t move any faster.

Suddenly I was tossed into the air by a stiff blow from below, and then I was draped over Arginine’s back, my legs dangling to either side of his withers. The stallion accelerated into a cautious canter as we ascended the stairs.

My eyes were locked onto the part of my Eyes Forward Sparkle that displayed my radiation exposure, watching those numbers continue to climb, and the many flashing warnings that were urging me to be anywhere other than where I was. I managed to retrieve another dose of Rad-X despite the jostling of the stallion’s transport method, but it didn’t seem to have any additional mitigating effect on how much I was absorbing.

Then my EFS began to flicker.

That was a little concerning as well, as I’d never seen that happen before. It was just little things at first: a brief blink of a few colors or part of the display becoming a little more saturated. However, as the minutes dragged on, those issues became more pronounced. I looked frantically at my pipbuck’s screen, and noticed that it was suffering similar problems. The image of the stylized pony on the display was fading out, and most of the numbers and acronyms had been scrambled into complete gibberish.

Suddenly, the screen went completely dark, and all of information that I’d only just started to get acclimated to seeing hovering in front of my eyes vanished as well.

That probably wasn’t a good sign.

Neither, I imagined, was how hot I was feeling. It was like I was standing in an oven or something, and it was making me tingle all the way to my bones. That tingling spread through my whole body, and when it got to my stomach, I felt a wave of nausea come over me like I never had before. It had been a while since I’d eaten, so at least I wasn’t vomiting all over Arginine, but there was a fair amount of dry heaving going on.

It wasn’t sounding like the stallion carrying me was faring much better either. He was coughing a fair bit, and his flesh felt a lot warmer too.

We were going to die, I realized. We were going to be cooked alive by the radiation, and we were going to die.

Arginine’s steps faltered. Either because the effects of the radiation were getting to him, or because the two century old stairway had given way beneath him, I didn’t know for sure. In any case, I went tumbling from his back and managed to land head-first on one of the steps behind us.

Unconsciousness put an end to my immediate concerns.

Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: Sticky Hooves - No, not that! Increased weight limit while walking up walls and along ceilings.

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