Look around you.. Look at the scorched earth and the bones that litter the wasteland. Millions... perhaps even billions, died because science outpaced ponykind's restraint!

The Overmare of Arginine’s stable wasn’t anything like I’d expected, in more ways than one. For one thing, she was the most ‘normal’ looking pony that I’d seen since entering this place. All of the others thus far had looked a lot like Arginine for the most part in terms of build and coloring. While this mare shared the coat and eye color of the large stallion, her size was on par with Foxglove’s.

She was also the oldest looking member of their stable that I’d yet to see. This was a detail that only now stood out to me about the population of the stable that I’d seen thus far, both within and in our encounters in the Wasteland: they’d all looked to be approximately around the same age. Arginine looked like he was in his early to mid twenties. So had the other guards and technicians that I’d encountered in their satellite ‘processing’ facilities. The soldiers surrounding Shady Saddles had as well, save for General Constance herself, of course.

This mare was the first older-looking pony I’d seen, in addition to having the most reasonable body-size.

Though, I did notice that her advanced age didn’t stop this mare from looking any less incensed by my appearance, after she managed to recover from her initial shock upon seeing my arrival, “I see that our security protocols are in need of a thorough review,” the mare growled in the absurdly shrill pitch that the helium in the air was still inducing in us. The squeaky tone did quite a bit to undermine the intensity of her ire, I felt.

Not that it was doing my already youthfully-high soprano any favors either. I sounded the way I imagined a bloatsprite would if it could talk, “I think a lot of what goes on here could do with a change,” I quipped, my features retaining their smug expression. It was hard not to enjoy this moment of victory, “which is exactly why I’m here: we’re going to discuss your stable’s surrender.”

Calmly, the Overmare brought her pipbuck to her mouth and spoke into it, “security, please report to my office immediately. There’s been a breach.”

I was confident that she was trying to sound intimidating, but her absurdly high-pitched voice made it sound like I was being menaced by a radroach, so my smirk didn’t so much as flicker, “yeah, unless you have a healthy supply of eldritch lances around, nopony’s getting here anytime soon. And, in like, ten minutes, this whole place is going to be crawling with surface ponies.

“You lost, we won,” oh, she didn’t look like she liked that appraisal all that much, “now I’m going to ask you nicely to contact Constance and have her stand down.”

“Or…?”

I blinked at the mare, actually a little surprised that she’d asked that question. I also didn’t have an answer ready to go, simply because...there wasn’t actually an ‘or’. The obvious one was: ‘or we’re going to destroy your stable’; but, I’d kind of promised the mercenaries that they got to loot the place once this was all over anyway, and I’d already wiped out all of their research data, so there really wasn’t all that much that I could do to the ponies here that I hadn’t already done or was planning to do regardless. Not that the pony in front of me knew any of that, of course.

It was possible that I could have tried to bluff my way through things and threaten to do all of the things that I was planning unless she cooperated. What exactly did it matter in the end if I reneged? Okay, yeah, that little orange earth pony didn’t seem to appreciate that notion all that much, but this was war! Some values had to be sacrificed in a wat, right?

That thought didn’t endure very long. After all, I was currently sitting in the epitome of where ‘sacrificing values’ had eventually gotten our ancestors to. The ponies here might have been my enemy, but that was no reason to compromise myself.

The only other leverage that I had was the lives of the ponies here, and I honestly wasn’t going to just...murder everypony here out of spite no matter what this mare said. I’m sure the mercenaries I’d brought with me wouldn’t hesitate to kill the stable inhabitants if I told them to, but I wasn’t going to. Because, at the end of the day, I’d come here to save lives, not end them.

“There isn’t an ‘or’,” I sighed finally, looking at the mare, “but there isn’t going to be a win for you either. My forces are at your doorstep, and Constance is a day away, at best. This place will be in our hooves before she can get here to stop us no matter what you do or say.

“It’s over, so just...stop. Please. Stop this whole operation. Stop the slaughter that Constance was sent out to commit. There’s no point to it anymore. Your stable isn’t going to make any more soldiers. All the information you’ve collected on how to make ‘perfect ponies’ is already destroyed. It’s over.”

“You sound awfully sure of that,” the Overmare replied coolly. Like, obviously coolly too; not just vague-hint-of-emotion-like-Arginine coolly, “do you honestly believe we’ve never suffered setbacks before? That’s all this will turn out to be: just one more minor bump on the road to our inevitable triumph.

“Whether you set us back a month, a year, or a century, it won’t be enough to stop us.

“Nothing that you can do can ever stop us,” she sneered.

“Well, duh!” I snapped back, which actually seemed to surprise the mare a little bit, “what, you think that I don’t know that the only way that this can actually ever end is if you decide to stop yourselves? Newsflash: that’s how everything in the world works. Whether it’s the Wasteland, or the Old World, or whatever new world comes after this one someday, that’s just how ponies work.

“I could fly around and shoot bandits from now until the second apocalypse, and it wouldn’t change anything; because it certainly never has yet! There would still be bandits in the world. The only way that there will ever stop being bandits in the world is if ponies decide to stop being bandits. Nothing I, or anypony else, can ever do will be able to change that.

“Ponies have to choose for themselves,” I shrugged, “I mean, yeah, I can still plug ‘em to stop any specific pony from causing a lot of harm, but that just treats a symptom, and does nothing to cure the actual problem.

“And the same thing goes for you folks: yes, I could blow up your stable―and I’m going to for a lot of reasons. I could kill each and every one of you. I could wipe out every one of your armies and butcher shops out there. I could do all of that…

“...and it wouldn’t actually solve the problem. Some of you would get away and lay low until I died, or I’d miss some hidden archive somewhere and this would all happen again in another two hundred years, or maybe even a thousand years from now some wholly unrelated group would get it into their heads to do exactly what you’re doing now for the same reasons.

“Fuck, for all I know, somepony, somewhere, has already fought off a group of duranged ponies trying to create a new and perfect breed to take over the world with. It’s a wild Wasteland out there; strange shit happens all the time!

“Which means,” I said, by way of winding up my little monologue, “that the only way that you, and ponies like you, can ever be stopped is by making you see how stupid of an idea this even is, and why it’s not worth doing in the first place. And the best way that I know to do that…” I swung my hooves off of the desk, straightened myself up in the chair, folded my hooves neatly on the table by the console and smiled, “...is by listening to you explain it out loud.”

The Overmare blinked at me for several long seconds, “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” I said, gesturing for her to continue, “break down your grand plan and explain it to me like I’m an idiot. Try to keep yourself limited to words that are three syllables or less.”

“You’re joking.”

“Dead serious.”

“You’re just trying to buy time. You’re stalling.”

“I’m in your stable, surrounded by your security ponies who are―I assume―right now trying to cut their way to us in order to kill me. Every second I linger here is a second that brings me closer to my own death,” I pointed out.

“Here, I’ll start us off: Your goal is to become better ponies in order to make sure that a second apocalypse like the one that caused the Wasteland can never, ever, happen again; right?” the older mare nodded cautiously, “so...you’ll do that by…?”

The Overmare frowned, “we will do this by designing a breed of pony that is objectively better: stronger, smarter, more empathetic. A breed of pony that will not only have been able to outright win the Great War, but would never have let one happen in the first place.”

“Okay, good, we’re making progress,” I smiled pleasantly at the mare, “so, since my knowledge about stuff that happened two hundred years before I was born is a bit fuzzy, how did the Great War happen?”

The mare balked again, “I’m sorry?”

“How’d it happen? You’re trying to create ponies that you just said wouldn’t even let a war like it happen in the first place, so what was that ‘first place’ two hundred years ago? How could ponies have avoided it? I’m not trying to be a flankhole here,” I assured her, “I genuinely don’t know, but you’re a smart pony raised in a stable, and you’re creating ponies who are going to be expected to solve that exact problem, so you obviously have to know what the problem was, right?

“So, how do ponies...not fight zebras to the point of world destruction? What are the steps?”

“I―it…” the mare stuttered, “look, it’s not about the Great War specifically,” she insisted, “we’re going to create ponies that will be able to avert any kind of war.”

“And that sounds amazing,” I said, my own pleasant features not even faltering, “and I really do want to hear how you’re going to do that. So…?”

“Well, of course I don’t know, I’m not an Omega Strain!” the mare finally admitted with an exasperated squeak, “I’m just an Epsilon. It’s going to be the job of the Omegas to build the perfect world, not mine.”

“Waitwaitwaitwait,” I waved my hoof at the mare, “are you telling me...that your ‘plan’...is to let somepony else...come up with the plan?” I asked incredulously, making the appropriate air quotes with my whooves, “that’s the kind of plan that an idiot comes up with! I should know; it’s pretty much how I came up with the plan to shut down this stable, and I’m an idiot!

“That’s so stupid!” I reiterated, throwing my hooves into the air, “you have no reason at all to believe that whoever you tell to come up with a plan to stop all wars forever will actually be able to do it!”

“Of course they’ll be able to do it,” the Overmare insisted, “they will be the best possible examples of ponies that can ever be created. If our simple ancestors could manage a thousand years or peace, then ponies many times their betters could easily manage a near eternity of it!”

“But you don’t even know why that thousand years of peace ended!” I countered, “what if it was because of something that ponies couldn’t control? What if it was the zebras? Or the griffons? A calamity from the fucking sky for all we know!

“How does any kind of pony stop that?”

To that, the Overmare didn’t have an answer ready, so I continued on, “you keep looking at this like ponies are the only ones involved, but they’re not. There’s a big world out there full of all kinds of creatures and beings. What exactly do you expect to happen when your perfect ponies meet one of them and the other wants to fight?

“What then?”

“Then whoever it is will lose that fight,” the older mare responded tartly, “the Omegas will be unstoppable.”

“So, what, you’re hoping that the rest of the world is just too afraid of ponies to want to fight them? Peace through fear of annihilation?”

“If it works, then I don’t see the problem,” the Overmare shrugged, “the world will know peace, and that is all the matters.”

“So, you think that if beings are afraid of being utterly destroyed, they won’t fight?” I deadpanned, but the mare merely nodded, “so, by your logic, a war where each side had, say...megaspells and balefire bombs, each capable of wiping out the other side, would never actually happen...am I right?”

The mare balked again, “well, I mean…”

“I may not be a genius like you or Arginine, but I have managed to learn some things while out there in the world,” I frowned at the mare, “so I’m going to share a few of them with you: fear doesn’t lead to rational thought. Some of the stupidest things that anypony has ever done in their lives has been because they were afraid. I can’t even begin to list off the stupid crap that being afraid led me to do.

“I also know that it only takes one to fight. It doesn’t matter how much one side may not want to fight, if the other does, then there’s going to be a fight. Bottom line.

“You could go and make the goodliest goody-good ponies that ever gooded, and there’d still be a war if some race like the zebras or griffons really wanted one. You can’t just focus on one side of the problem. You have to address them both.”

I paused and thought for a moment, “or you could just murder every member of every other race on the planet in a seemingly endless series of wars to solve the whole: ‘stop all wars’ problem. But that feels like killing the patient to fix a lame leg.”

The Overmare was silent for a long while, staring at me in contemplation. Even in the dim emergency lighting, I could see the doubt creeping into her eyes. She was wavering. If I pushed just a bit more, I might be able to finally get through to her, “look, I admire what your stable is trying to accomplish: ponies that don’t want another Great War? What’s not to love about that idea?!

“It’s not your goal that’s the problem, it’s your means,” I continued, “trying to stop killing by doing more killing? It doesn’t work like that, trust me. I’ve been killing for a long time,” my lips shifted into a wan smile as I looked back on my life with more than a slight pang of regret, “and it hasn’t done me, or the world, any amount of good that I can tell.

“Look, you’re all obviously really smart ponies―and I sincerely do mean that,” I said, shifting back to a lighter tone in an effort to avoid falling into a chasm of my own melancholy, “and maybe you can someday find a way to help the whole world...but it’s not going to be like this. It’s just...not,” I paused for a moment, and then cracked a wan smile, “you can get there, but not like you are. You need to change your perspective.”

The mare frowned slightly, “and who exactly are we supposed to get that perspective from? You? I’ll admit you’ve stimied me once or twice during this little…exchange of ours, but I would also like to point out that this is hardly an even playing field,” she gestured at the dim room, “you surprised me during a stressful situation with arguments that you’ve obviously been preparing for quite some time, catching me completely unaware. I’m sure there are plenty of holes that I can poke in your stance if given enough time to look through the archives of the Overmares that have come before me, and the records of the Stable-Tec scientists who put our whole initiative together.

“Surely they gave our goal far more thought than some invalid Wasteland filly could have,” she harrumphed.

I leaned back and coiled my legs, pushing the chair away from the desk and waving at the terminal, “hey, by all means! It’s not like I really expected to completely change the world view of you or your stable with a few minutes of conversation. Like I said, I once thought exactly like you and went out of my way to kill all of the ponies that I didn’t think deserved a place in ‘my’ Wasteland.

“But years of experience began to make me wonder different―that and a fever-dream or two,” I added with an awkward grin, “and now I’m not sure sure I was right to think like I did. You? You guys don’t have that same experience yet. You sort of just started your whole ‘kill all the bad ponies’ phase.

“But, wouldn’t actual smart ponies at least be willing to listen to the voice of some first-hoof experience before they go and risk making the same mistakes? That’s supposed to be how knowing stuff works, right? You learn about what other ponies did that worked and didn’t work, so that you can avoid the stuff that didn’t, and work on the stuff that did?

“So will you at least...listen to me? That’s all I’m asking for right now. Give me time to tell you about what I know, and why I don’t think it’ll work. We can look through your records and you can tell me what you think I missed that might have made me right the first time before I went and overthought myself into not killing...or whatever.

“You’ve waited two hundred years. Just...give me, I dunno, an hour, at least!”

The Overmare stared at me for a long while in silence. Then, finally, “very well. I shall grant you your hour.”

“Neat! Here, give me a sec,” I keyed up my pipbuck and selected the frequency for Foxglove and Arginine, “hey guys, once you’ve linked up, make for the stable entrance and let everypony else in so they can get ready to strip this place. Me and the Overmare are going to talk things out for a while. I’ll let you two know when I’m done,” I then turned off the radio and looked back up at the Overmare, who was now scowling at me.

“What kind of negotiating tactic is that? You would hold my stable hostage to try and sway me?”

“What? No!” I shrugged, “the way I see it: either I convince you to agree that this stable was a bad idea, and it needs to be destroyed, or you don’t agree with me and I’ll need to destroy it anyway to keep my friends and everypony else in the Wasteland from being genocided.

“If I’m going to wreck it no matter what, I can’t be holding it hostage. Not technically, anyway…”

She seemed less than pleased with my rationale, but I could only offer her a helpless expression and wave for her to take a seat across the desk, “come, sit, let’s talk. Convince me why everypony I know needs to die so that nopony ever has to die again, or whatever…”

To the Overmare’s―I eventually learned that her name was, Zara―credit, she did sit down and speak with me. She was even polite enough to do so without sounding too condescending while she did so. Though she did cross over into the tone of patronising more than a few times. Considering that she was being assaulted by the concepts of an elder speaking to a child and a ‘superior’ pony to an ‘invalid’ on two fronts, I gave her a pass on it. She at least looked like she was listening to what I had to say.

In return, I genuinely listened to her and read through the files that she opened. I remained mum regarding my own readings of their records as I watched her navigate through several directories and records, noting that she never seemed to actually venture to the same locations that I had. I didn’t think much of that at first. A two hundred year old stable had a lot of records, after all. I didn’t expect us to review all of them. Surely we’d hit on the same points eventually.

Only, we didn’t. As Zara went further and further back in the stable’s records, the more confused I became about the narrative that was being presented, and how it very distinctly didn’t line up with the same records that I’d stumbled upon in their computer core. To hear the Overmare tell things, there’s was not only a directive that had Stable-Tec’s blessing, but that of a few of the Ministry Mares as well, to include the Ministry of Arcane Science. Oddly enough, the Ministry of Wartime Technology was not listed as being a contributor. Obviously, this wasn’t how I’d just learned things to be not an hour ago.

Eventually, I was compelled to speak up, “I have a question,” I ventured cautiously, “do your records indicate who was originally selected to be in charge of this stable after the war?”

“Our first Overmare was Moondancer, a former project director in the MAS,” Zara answered patiently.

“No, I mean, I know she became the first Overmare, but she wasn’t the original pony that was selected,” I noted the look of confusion on the other mare’s face, “that’s in the records, right?”

The Overmare frowned and shook her head, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, and with a very convincing tone as well. If she was lying, she was a master at it. Though, everything that I knew about Arginine suggested that ponies in this stable didn’t work all that hard on perfecting their skills at deceiving others in direct conversation. Yeah, this mare seemed a lot more personable, but that didn’t necessarily suggest to me that she was a particularly good liar either, “Director Moondancer was always meant to be the first Overmare of this stable.”

“Can I see that terminal for a second?”

Zara frowned at me, but moved aside without complaint. I suppose she wasn’t too eager to antagonize the pony holding her stable at proverbial and literal gunpoint. I put my hooves to the console and began to tap away, searching for the directory that I’d come across earlier.

Only I couldn’t find it. It didn’t appear anywhere on the network that this terminal was connected to, “are there files that this system is locked out of?” I asked the Overmare.

“Of course not. That sort of partitioning doesn’t exist in this stable,” she insisted, “there is only one network, and every terminal has access to all stored information. Only certain terminals have the authority to alter certain information, but all terminals have read-level access.”

I withdrew from the terminal and began to tap at my pipbuck, “then why can’t I find this,” I showed the Overmare the screen of my fetlock-mounted computer, and the memorandum about the stable’s original purpose that I’d found while snooping around in the computer core. Specifically the memo that outlined Operation Overrun.

Zara regarded the screen for several long moments, her lips pursed in confusion, “where did you find that?”

“In your stable’s computer core,” I withdrew my pipbuck briefly and switched the screen to show the letter of intent that Moondancer had drafted to send out to Stable-Tec and the MWT that was never able to be delivered. Probably because the world above was still being burned by balefire or whatever, “it’s also where I found this,” again the other mare looked at the screen.

“This stable was never supposed to wipe the slate and make a clean go of things with ‘better’ ponies. Moondancer certainly never said anything of the sort. In fact…” I swapped to a third file, “it isn’t until a mare named Gattaca was put in charge that the idea is even first mentioned.”

“...that can’t be right,” Zara maneuvered back in front of the terminal and began to look through the records that she found there, “there’s no mention of this ‘Caramel Apple’, or the MWT, or Overrun.”

“Well, I found all of this on your computers,” I insisted, “if you don’t believe me, call out and have one of your ponies go and check for themselves,” a thought occurred to me, “Cobol might still be down there...if he’s awake.”

“Yes, I think I’ll―” her own pipbuck chirped at that moment. She brought the mic up to her lips, “Overmare. Report.”

“Unauthorized access detected at the stable entrance,” I heard a gruff stallion say through the pipbuck’s speaker, “requests for information from sentry posts are not being returned.”

Zara glanced in my direction, her expression grave, “associates of yours, I presume?”

I nodded, “they’re here to take your stable. They’ll only kill if they have to. Tell your ponies to stay in their quarters and not resist, and there shouldn’t be a body count,” I was fairly confident that I could count on Keri, Hemlock and Yeoman to keep their respective ponies in line. Griselda might have been a different story. To that end, it sounded like she’d done her due diligence where the stable’s sentries were concerned. I was doubtful that Zara would be seeing any survivors from them though.

The Overmare was silent for several seconds. For a while, I was afraid that she was going to give the order to have her security teams offer up all of the resistance that they could, even if they would ultimately lose. She wouldn’t be the first pony to want to make things difficult out of spite. Fortunately, she ultimately didn’t seem to be so inclined, “clear the corridors,” she said instead, “have all non-essential staff report to their quarters until further notice.”

Now the question was whether such orders would be obeyed, I thought, as the pony on the other end was also quiet for significantly longer than I was comfortable with. Then, finally, “understood, Overmare.”

“Thank you for that,” I said.

“It was pragmatism,” the Overmare responded cooly, “I want this stable to remain as intact as possible for as long as possible. I’ve yet to be dissuaded by your efforts,” and her tone suggested that she doubted that she ever would be, “and General Constance is bound to return soon enough. Once she arrives, she’ll doubtless be able to pry your own forces from within the stable.”

On that point, Zara was probably right, I conceded. Even with control of the stable, it did nothing to help us against Constance and her eight hundred engineered soldiers. I certainly entertained no notions that I’d ever be able to talk the ponies here into actively helping me.

My own pipbuck chirped now, as Foxglove’s voice crackled over the speaker, “Windy, the door’s open and the teams are heading inside. No sign of opposition yet.”

“The Overmare’s ordered stable security to stand down,” I informed her, “spread the word to the others to hold their fire. We shouldn’t see any fighting. Focus on securing the objectives.”

“I’ll pass it along,” Foxglove assure me, and then cut the connection.

“I don’t suppose that I can get you to order Constance to stand down too, huh?”

“Unlikely.”

“Fair enough,” I sighed, “anyway, like I was saying: I can tell you where these files are on your own system and you can read them for yourself. But the broad strokes is that it sounds like one of your Overmares had a bad day out in the Wasteland in her youth, and decided that she wanted revenge,” which was something I could relate to, honestly. That sequence of events pretty much summed up my own life too.

“What I can also tell you is that, whatever Stable-Tec or the MWT want this place to be, Moondancer wasn’t onboard with it. Everything I read suggested that she wanted to help ponies, not kill them.”

“Hmph. I would still like an explanation as to why there is such a discrepancy in our records…” the Overmare grumbled.

“I don’t have answers to that,” I shrugged, “but you’ve got an entire stable full of really smart ponies,” I pointed out, “something tells me that you’ll be able to figure it out. I’d be really interested in hearing about it too, when you do find the answer.”

“No doubt,” the other mare said in a somewhat distant tone as she browsed through additional files with renewed interest. Idly, she brought her pipbuck back up, “Cartoosh?”

“Yes, Overmare?” a mare’s voice answered almost immediately.

“When this whole ‘invasion’ excitement dies down, make it a point to go down to storage and bring me the contents of Locker 0001.”

“Understood, Overmare.”

A second later, before I could ask for details about what Zara had just requested, the door to the Overmare’s office made a loud ‘thunk’ sound, and then slid grudgingly open. Standing in the still-dim red light on the other side was a small gaggle of ponies who were quite obviously not products of this stable. At their head was Foxglove, looking like her old self again. She seemed to relax considerably once she had me in sight. Only after she’d satisfied herself that I hadn’t managed to get myself killed did she take note of the other mare in the room with me. Her expression immediately suggested that she was just as surprised by her appearance as I had been.

The violet mare looked focused her attention on me once more, “we’ve secured most of the stable,” she reported. Her eyes darted briefly to the Overmare, “no resistance so far. Most of the residents appear to have already confined themselves to their quarters. Those that weren’t trapped in other areas by the lockdown, anyway.”

“Good,” I said, nodding my head, grateful that we might just get through this part without a bodycount. Though, there was still a much greater issue on the horizon that was exponentially less likely to be as accommodating: Constance, “once the vital areas are staffed with our ponies, I want the mercs to focus on fortifying defensive positions outside.”

“Outside?” the confused sounding word was asked by one of the mercenaries that had accompanied Foxglove to finish securing the Overmare’s office.

I nodded my head, “if we stay in the stable, all Constance realistically has to do is post a few dozen soldiers outside the door and she’ll have us trapped here. That works against us. She can do a lot of damage to the valley all on her own. She could still box us in if we’re outside, but it would take hundreds of her soldiers to do it; at least half her army, if not more.

“She knows that we took out two hundred of her soldiers without much trouble,” I pointed out, “so, if we’re lucky, she might figure that she can’t spare less than half her remaining force to keep us here, if that’s what she chooses to do. At that point, Constance is actually better off trying to pry us out of here than leaving us penned in, since I doubt even she can do much with just four hundred. At least, I hope that she thinks that after her loss at Shady Saddles.”

There was a lot to be argued about the wisdom of basically trying to gode a superior force into attacking our weaker one. Unfortunately, it was the best option we had out of several worse ones. Attacking Constance’s forces on her terms certainly wasn’t going to go any better for us. No, her attacking us gave us the better odds, such as they were.

Besides, there was still a slim chance that we’d be getting some significant reinforcements of our own for this battle. I should probably check where Homily and Moonbeam were on that front, “Foxy, you take care of things here, I’m going to contact McMaren. Then I’ll meet with RG and see what we can do about those ponies they’ve got growing in the tanks.”

“Alright,” the unicorn said, giving me a small nod, then she glanced at the mercs with her and pointed at the Overmare, “confine her to her quarters, and keep her away from any terminals. I’ll see what I can do about changing the access codes for the network…”

I left the technical matters of our occupation in more capable hooves than mine and left the Overmare’s office. A brief glance at the map on my pipbuck oriented me in the direction of the large rooms where I’d seen the maturation pods. I sent a brief message to RG to have him meet me there. Then I keyed in Homily.

A few seconds later, I received an acknowledgement, “Windfall! I really hope you have good news for us?”

Well, that did sound ominous at all, did it? “We took the stable, for now,” I informed her, then frowned, “why? How are things going on your end?”

“Touch and go, honestly,” was the radio personality’s dour response, “we’ve got the link between McMaren and the hangar set up, but that’s about it. Moonbeam’s having trouble getting the drones to do anything. We think it might be some sort of security protocol that’s meant to stop just anypony from trying to control the drones, but it’s hard to know for sure. It’s not like anypony left a manual behind on how to do all this. At least, they didn’t leave one here…

“I’ve got ponies on both sides trying to work the issue, but it’s hard to say how long it’ll take to get everything working, considering we don’t know exactly why it’s not working right now.”

Well, that was certainly less than ideal, I thought worriedly. Most of my plan for the endgame had kind of hinged on being able to use those old combat drones. If Homily and the others couldn’t have them working in time...horseapples, “keep doing your best,” I said, trying my hardest not to sound as worried as I was. If Homily couldn’t do it, then she couldn’t do it, and we’d just need to think of something else or hope the forces we had would be enough. I highly doubted they would be, but that point would be moot when the time came.

We’d either succeed...or we wouldn’t.

I pushed that depressing thought out of my head as I reached the entrance of the massive room I’d seen earlier from the vent grate. Arginine was waiting patiently outside, and I saw now that he wasn’t alone. Another mare from his stable was with him, along with a trio of wary looking Housecarls. The large stallion noticed my arrival, “Miss Windfall,” I winced slightly, noting that we seemed to be back to this level of ‘formality’ even when it was just the two of us, “I took the liberty of requesting that Chief Technician Agar join us. She is in charge of strain maturation.”

The engineered mare wore an expression that I was able to identify as being quite a sour one, thanks to my experience reading Arginine’s own micro-expressions. It was clear that she wasn’t entirely thrilled to be here talking with me, or even with Arginine, I suspected, given recent events.

“Awesome. So, what I really want to know is: how easy will it be to wake all of those ponies up before everything is all ‘done’ or whatever? I know it’s possible,” Constance herself had admitted that she’d been brought out of the process prematurely. That didn’t mean that it was as easy as just pressing a button or flipping a switch, or that it was even something could be done on a whim. For all I knew, the process to wake Constance early had been put into motion weeks before the actual event. Fortunately, I now got to speak with a pony who would be able to tell me, “I just want to get an idea of how long it would take to do.”

This time the mare’s expression was a lot easier to read: surprise, “you...wish to wake them up?” She glanced over at Arginine, as though seeking out his confirmation that she had heard my question correctly. He gave her a nod, “that...would not be terribly difficult,” the mare admitted, “the maturation chambers could all be properly reconfigured within a day.”

Despite that fact that it did sound perfectly reasonable that it would take a day for the better part of a thousand pieces of sophisticated equipment performing a technically complicated procedure to be reconfigured, I felt my features crease into a deep frown at the news all the same. It was very likely that Constance would have already arrived at the stable and the battle would be concluded by that point. If we emerged victorious, then it didn’t matter and we could wake them up and get them out of the stable before we finished demolishing everything.

If Constance won, however...I suspected that it would be just as easy to reverse the process and get all of those maturation pods right back on track to produce the next wave of their army. If it looked like we were going to lose, the smart thing to do would be to deny Constance the stable entirely, even if all of the ponies in those tubes couldn’t be gotten out in time. Could I do that though? Could I give that order, to kill a thousand ponies who hadn’t even really been born yet? Not giving it might doom tens of thousands more. Is that how decisions like this worked; just weighing numbers against each other? Kill a thousand to save a million. Kill ten to save a thousand. Kill one to save...what was the lowest acceptable number there? Was it enough to kill one pony just to save one other? Was that how that worked?

I rubbed my temple in frustration. How was I supposed to know the answer to questions like that? Who in the world even could?

Nothing for it then; we just had to make sure that Constance didn’t win this fight, “do it, please,” I told the mare, “wake them up as quickly as you can. I don’t suppose that it’s possible to not make them soldiers or stuff, is it?” I asked, glancing once more between Agar and Arginine.

The mare frowned, “that would take considerably more time. Building neural connects is far easier than breaking them down. Though it is not impossible,” she seemed reluctant to admit that part. It was honestly a little curious to me that she was being as forward with all of this information as she was. Though, I supposed that it Arginine was truly a typical example of a pony from this stable, then maybe it wasn’t in Agar’s nature to lie either. These ponies just didn’t have it in them.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the whole ‘genocide’ thing, they would all be pretty great ponies…

“...do that,” I finally said. No matter what, they weren’t going to be out of those tubes before Constance was here anyway. If we ended up winning, then this way we’d be dealing with a thousand nominally benign engineered ponies rather than a legion of soldiers. Besides, nopony should have to face the Wasteland knowing only how to fight and kill. I should know.

“It’ll take about a week to make the necessary changes for that,” Agar cautioned.

I nodded, “that’s fine; I understand. Please do it. They’re ponies and they deserve a chance to lead good lives. Peaceful lives,” I stressed, “I want to give them that chance, if possible.”

The mare quirked her brow once more and glanced at Arginine, who merely nodded. Though I did catch the faintest hint of a smile there as well. He looked to the mercenary escorts, “please accompany Chief Agar as she makes the alterations.”

The pair of Wasteland ponies balked, one of them stating incredulously, “we’re really going to trust her? What if she’s lying?”

“She’s not,” I said with a wan smile, completely understanding their apprehension, “these stable ponies are weird like that. Besides, if Constance wipes us out and retakes the stable, I bet the ponies here can just change them all right back, can’t you?” Agar nodded, “see? Doing what we ask doesn’t hurt them if they win. On the other hoof, not cooperating risks us doing something more extreme, like killing all of their soldiers by cutting off the main power. Even if they win, that’ll set them back a lot longer, won’t it?”

This time, the technician merely issued a slight frown, but I knew that I was right. I was grateful that they were cooperating though, since I wasn’t convinced that I’d be able to go through with shutting off the power if they did refuse. Hopefully Foxglove or somepony else would step up and make the hard choice like that and I could drink myself into oblivion for a couple days and move on from there. Believing that something like this could be done without a body count was the pinnacle of naivety, I realized that. I just...I really just wanted to see if it was possible.

I wanted to try and be better than I had been.

The mercenaries were still quite obviously dubious, but they were also being very well paid. To their minds, I was probably not the first client to make stupid decisions, and I wouldn’t be the last. As long as they lived long enough to collect their caps, they didn’t really care how badly I screwed myself over in the long run. So, with a little idle grumbling, the pair dutifully escorted Agar through the doors, leaving me and Arginine behind.

We both stood there in awkward silence. Well, it was awkward for me, at least, “so...it’s been a while since we had a real chance to talk,” Arginine nodded in silent agreement. Another boudt of quiet, “...would you like to show me around this place? I haven’t gotten to see much of it besides the vent ducts.”

“I can do that,” the stallion said, gesturing for me to follow him through the corridor, “this stable has a number of features that are rather atypical of most designs.”

“I bet. I saw some records that say this place was meant to be used for an MWT counter-attack.”

“Indeed?” Arginine’s eyes widened slightly with a look of surprise, “that would certainly explain quite a lot then,” he took me to an elevator and ushered me inside. We descended to the lowest level, “we’ll start at the bottom and work our way up. Our first stop will be Materials Processing.”

The doors opened, and my lungs were immediately assaulted by the abruptly high amount of dust that was hanging in the air. My nose scrunched up and I just about gagged at the sudden taste of dirt, “what the heck is going on down here?!” Had the environmental systems down here not managed to recover after our little stunt earlier?

“Mining operations,” Arginine replied simply, not looking as though he was as bothered by the conditions down here. Probably some sort of ‘genetically superior lungs’ thing or whatever, “outfitting our forces requires a significant amount of raw material. I am lead to understand that this stable’s location was selected specifically to take advantage of some rather significant mineral deposits that would prove of use for such purposes,” he stepped out of the luft and I followed behind him, snorting occasionally to keep the dust out of my nose.

“Raw ore is extracted and refined onsite,” the stallion continued, “talismans are heavily employed, as underground stables are not strictly conducive to traditional smelting methods. They are not perfect, however, and neither is the stable’s air purification system fully up to the task of keeping the air down here as clean as it is on other levels,” we walked past a number of rooms containing idle machinery. I saw carts loaded with what looked like little more than rocks, as well as a few containing small ingots of what I assumed were steel, copper, and aluminum. There might have been other metals as well, but I was neither an expert in such matters, nor inclined to take that close of a look.

We came to a stop at the end of the corridor. Indeed, it looked like the end of the stable itself. Beyond lay an expansive cavern with a number of tunnels branching off of it on various levels. I could see mining equipment, but no ponies. They’d probably returned to their quarters once the lockdown had been initiated.

It was quite the operation, and I couldn’t remember seeing anything like it. I mean, the Republic had a few mines too, but I doubted that they were anything as sophisticated as this. Their efforts involved a lot of indentured muscle-power. This stable, with its limited number of personnel, relied mostly upon advanced machinery. Most of which looked to be quite serviceable as well. If we had the time, it would have been worthwhile to try and bring it all to the surface somehow, along with the machines being used to refine the raw material.

“It’s too bad all of this is being used to make weapons,” I sighed, “this stable could have helped a lot of ponies otherwise.”

Arginine glanced down at me for a few seconds before nodding, “I suppose that is correct.”

“How long are all of those tunnels, anyway?”

“I do not know the exact measurements,” the stallion admitted, “I could contact the foremare and ask?”

“Nah. Doesn’t really matter, I guess. What’s our next stop on this little tour?”

“The maturation chambers you have already seen. After that is Fabrication, where these materials are used to assemble the equipment necessary to outfit our forces.”

I frowned and shook my head, “I don’t need to see a weapons factory,” I was confident that most of those arms had already been appropriated by the mercenaries anyway. We’d want every gun and scrap of munitions for the upcoming fight, “isn’t there anywhere in this place that’s, I don’t know, nice?”

“There’s the orchards,” Arginine replied simply.

“The what now?”

The corner of the stallion’s mouth twitched.

Trees. Honest to Celestia trees! Hundreds of them! Green grass too! A little piece of the world from before the Wasteland, carefully excised and sealed away protectively underground. The picturesque nature of it all was marred slightly by the runs of lights, rust-tinged irrigation piping, and climate control air ducting, but if you kept your gaze set at about trunk level, you could almost fool yourself into thinking that you were outside in a for real forest! Not that I’d ever seen such a place in real life, or course. Nopony alive had―save, perhaps, for ghouls; but it was something of a matter of opinion as to how ‘alive’ they were.

It wasn’t all too unlike how the forest had looked in my dream the other night though. Of course, these trees were much smaller, and they were formed into neat and orderly rows. It provided the barest hint of clinical taint to the otherwise natural scene, but it was easy to overlook. Certainly easier than the sight of the hundred or so mercenary ponies currently crawling all over the place as they gorged themselves. Part of me felt like I should tell them to stop; that they were somehow spoiling all of this. On the other hoof, the last thing I wanted to to sow the seeds of a mutiny by telling ponies who’d likely been living off of whatever plants managed to grow in the blighted Wasteland above their whole lives that they couldn’t have any eat any of the first real apples they’d probably ever seen in their lives.

Besides, if things went ‘right’, then this place wouldn’t even exist for much longer. That, more than the mercenaries, tarnished those fleeting feelings of glee that I’d felt since arriving here. This place would go up with the stable. We were going to destroy this glorious thing of beauty. And we were going to do it to save a veritable hellscape.

The least I could do, in that case, was try to appreciate it while it was still around. I walked over to a far corner of the orchard, out of the way of all of the other ponies who were not quite pillaging it, and made myself comfortable beneath one of the trees. I noted the partially trampled grass and a few pulped apples which suggested that this part had already been visited. My vision clouded briefly with the image of a fallen tree and a disappointed orange earth pony mare.

I looked up at Arginine, who was idly watching the mercenaries. Even through his stoic expression I could see that he was a little irked at their gluttony, “hey,” I said, drawing his attention. The stallion looked down at me and I patted the grass nearby, “come on and join me for a minute. There’s some things I want to talk about.”

He raised a curious brow and lowered himself down to the ground nearby, “anything specific?”

“I want to try and think positive,” I began, “so I figure we should talk about the future. What I’m going to do, what you’re going to do, and what the other ponies from this stable are going to do. You know, once Constance is beaten and this stable is...no longer operating,” I couldn’t quite bring myself to say ‘destroyed’ at the moment. Was there some way to move these trees? Would it even matter? They probably wouldn’t be able to survive in Neighvada. This place felt way more humid than the valley ever got.

“Are you seeking my input and advice on those matters?”

I cracked a wan smile, “sort of, maybe. I don’t know,” I sighed, “I just want a pony who’ll listen for a while,” I looked up at the stallion, and he issued an understanding nod, saying nothing. I took a deep breath, organizing my thoughts as my hoof rubbed idly at my belly, “first, I guess is myself. I always wanted to be a mother someday―though not this soon,” I flashed the stallion a glare that wasn’t―quite―accusatory. After all, it hadn’t been entirely his fault, I had to admit. Just poor judgement and abyssmal timing, “I mean, I don’t even know where I’m supposed to settle down and do it! I can’t just keep flying around stopping raiders with a foal, can I?” I had a brief flash of myself zipping through the air with my compact forty-five clutched in my teeth and a foal swaddled across my back. As entertaining an image as it was, I highly doubted it was even remotely wise or practical.

“I have the apartment in Seaddle, I guess, but I’m currently near the top of the Republic’s Most Wanted list, so I’m probably not welcome back,” I snorted, “after we’re done paying the mercenaries, I won’t have the bits for a place in New Reino. I was going to fix up my folks’ old place, but I haven’t had time’ and let’s face it, I don’t know the first thing about carpentry anyway. It was one thing when all I had to do was clean it up a bit, but after the Ranger attack it basically needs to be totally rebuilt!

“Where am I supposed to go? How am I supposed to support us? How do I even raise a foal? When are they supposed to start talking? What am I supposed to teach them other than how to punch things and shoot guns? I don’t want them to grow up like I did: only learning how to fight. I want them to be better than I am. I want them to be smart enough to actually do something that’ll really help ponies! I just―!” I let out a frustrated groan as all of the mounting worries and fears about my impending parenthood spill out all at once. Then I collapsed to the ground and covered my head with my hooves, as though it would somehow hide me from the world and free me from its trials, “...I just wish my ma was here. She’d know what to do,” I sniffed, fighting back a tear that threatened to escape as I was assaulted by my last vision of her headless corpse on the floor of the White Hoof tent.

It seemed that my failure that day was going to spread to affect another pony. One who hadn’t even been conceived at that point apparently. Why was I even here? What did I know about ‘saving the Wasteland’ when I didn’t even know how to raise my kid?! Ponies did it all the time, so it couldn’t be that hard, and yet I still couldn’t fathom the first thing about it. Exactly how much of a moron was I?

Lucky for me, Arginine decided that the time for listening in respectful silence had come to an end, “if I may: I have noted that you omitted an option, as far as accomodations go at least,” I glance up at the stallion from beneath my hooves, “McMaren,” I felt my brow crease, “Whatever the Republic’s opinion of you, the ponies there hold you in high esteem. I would find it highly doubtful that they would refuse you a place to stay, if you were to ask.

“Similarly, there are many ponies there with substantial educations and technical knowledge that could serve as mentors for your foal at a later date for a myriad of fields of study. One or more of them may even have parental insights that they would be willing to share with you as well. My understanding is that there are families that are starting to be raised there since they’ve expanded their scope, so at the least you will be in the company of other mare who have foals.”

I raised my head, regarding the stallion. Actually...he had a point―as usual. I hadn’t considered McMaren, not really. Mostly because I was still thinking of the base as just some little broadcasting outpost, as it had been during my initial visit. However, it had indeed changed considerably over time. I recalled now the burgeoning market and the new homes being erected as they capitalized on the salvage obtained from the Ministry of Awesome base resting below the surface. In time, it would probably have all of the trappings of a real town. And while I didn’t know about ‘high esteem’, Homily certainly wasn’t going to turn me away at the gate if I asked to make a home there for myself.

It’s not like I was going to ask for a hoofout either. McMaren was growing, and they’d only had so many guards to begin with. They’d lost quite a few during the Steel Ranger attack as well, so I knew they could certainly use some experienced hooves helping to keep the perimeter secure from trouble. I could do that much to earn my keep.

I flashed Arginine a smile, “that’s actually a really good idea. Thanks for that. It really does make me feel better,” then I had a thought as well, “you know, I bet McMaren could use a good doctor. You could settled down there with me,” I felt my cheeks flush and hastily added, “I mean not ‘with me’ with me, but at least on the base. We could see each other whenever and stuff―not ‘see’ see each though! Just...you know, as friends.”

Arginine regarded me with a neutral expression, “if you desire to resume our previous intimate relationship, I am willing to once more accommodate―”

“No!” Alright, I might have said that a bit to vehemently. I cleared my throat and took a moment to compose myself a little better, “no. That’s not what I’m saying. In fact, I think it’s best that we don’t resume our...relationship. Not like it was anyway,” the bottom line was that Arginine had hurt me, bad. I understood why he’d done it, and there’d genuinely been no malice behind his actions. That made my forgiveness of him possible, but there was still that lingering sense of betrayal, “I think we can still be friends though. If you want.”

The stallion blinked, staying silent for several long seconds, then, “...I think that I would find that acceptable,” then his expression soured slightly, “though, on the matter of a medical practice: you do know that I am not actually a doctor, correct?”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘you take ponies apart’, I’ve heard it before,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hoof, frowning at him, “but so what? How many other ponies in the Wasteland do you think went to a real medical school? Those things haven’t existed for two hundred years. They’re just ponies doing the best that they know how with what little they were taught by somepony else or have picked up over the years. Meanwhile, you at least got for-real knowledge about how ponies work wired directly into your brain, or whatever. You know how to perform surgeries too. After all, they’re basically dissections done backwards, right?”

Arginine’s features creased into a much more visible frown than usual, “there is a great deal that is incorrect with that assessment; I’m not even certain that it would be worthwhile to correct you,” his frown deepened, “I am not even certain of where I would begin to correct you!”

Again I waved away the stallion’s concerns, “I was there when you delivered Yatima’s foal by cutting her open and closing her up again like new. That was surgery, as far as I’m concerned. You also plucked the better part of a pound of buckshot out of my rear end that one time―and saved me from dying of radiation poisoning in Old Reino.

“Face it, RG: you’re a damn good doctor. McMaren would be lucky to have you. So, yeah,” I shrugged, clearing my throat and feeling myself grow a little flushed once again, “if you want to go to McMaren with me and live there―but not live with me―I think that would be pretty...nice.”

“...I will consider it,” he said and I felt myself smile a little. He’d do it. Maybe Foxglove would want to live there too. I mean, she and Homily had a...thing―?―going on. I wasn’t sure how serious it was, but they made a cute couple, I thought. At the very least, a mare with her technical expertise would certainly be welcome there. I wasn’t sure about Ramparts. He’d probably go back to New Reino to be with Yatima and his foal. I wasn’t sure what he’d do for work, but―like me―there was plenty of work around for ponies who knew how to deal with threats. He was―or had been, at least―part of the Republic’s elite force of Coursers, so he’d probably be snapped up by a casino boss’s private security detail or one of the mercenary outfits.

Maybe I could convince him to bring his whole family to McMaren too? One more experience hoof with a gun would help their security. Heck, with the experience he had, he might even be able to work training guardponies there. Yatima could go back to cooking or whatever if she wanted. We’d all still be together, I thought with a smile, glad to think that I wasn’t going to lose all of my friends after all of this was over.

Well, except for maybe Starlight Glimmer and Moonbeam. When things were wrapped up here, they’d probably want to go find that Crystal Empire or whatever and learn what happened to her husband. It was a given that he was dead, they seemed to acknowledge that. They just wanted closure. Once they had it though, maybe I could suggest that they come back…?

Maybe. It was nice to imagine anyway: all of us sticking together forever, living out safe and happy lives in a friendly little community.

My pipbuck chirped and drew me out of my reverie. Foxglove was paging me, “hey, Foxy; what’s up?”

“The Overmare received a lockbox not too long ago and has been looking through it. She wants to talk to you.”

I exchanged looks with Arginine, but the stallion simply shrugged, “we’ll be right there,” I closed the channel, “I wonder what she wants to talk about?”

The stallion stood up, brushing away some smashed apple bits that he’d laid in, “I believe that there is only one way to find out. I will admit, I am quite intrigued myself.”

I spent another brief moment taking one last look around the orchard, ignoring the rampant pillaging going on around us and trying to see only the beauty of the trees. There might be time to come back down here before the battle, but in case there wasn’t…

I sighed, “let’s go,” and the two of us left the greenery behind for the sterile gray metal of the stable.

When we arrived at the Overmare’s Office, we found the pair of mercenaries that had been with Foxglove stationed outside the door, standing watch. Indeed, mercenary groups were spread throughout most of the stable at key points, ready in the event that the residents decided that they were no longer content to await liberation at the hooves of the approaching Constance and her army. I highly doubted that would be the case, but it never hurt to be prepared for the worst case.

Inside were Foxglove and the Overmare. The former was sitting behind the latter’s desk, tapping diligently at the terminal. She noted our entry and I saw he gaze harden briefly as she took note of Arginine and then reluctantly soften―barely―beneath my own daring gaze. She could go on hating Arginine for the rest of her life―and she very likely would―but I wasn’t going to let her put the explosive collar back on his neck. It was my prerogative to forgive him, not hers.

Zara was currently standing on the far side of the room, peering out of the room’s observation window at the atrium below. I doubted that she was looking at anything specific. All that was likely to be down there at the moment were some empty benches and a few mercenaries standing guard. Nearby, I spotted a small metal storage box with its lid open and its contents spread out over the floor around the Overmare. The engineered leader of this stable peered over her shoulder as she heard the door close behind us, and I saw a mournful smile tug at her lips. It was odd to me to see such overt expression from a pony in this stable like that, even from a mare who looked so much unlike the others I’d encountered.

The mare looked back to the window, “you must think us all to be quite the fools,” she said.

“What?” I glanced questioningly at Arginine at my side, but he seemed to be at a loss as well. Foxglove had stopped her work at the terminal and was watching the conversation before her with rapt attention.

“You would be right to do so,” Zara continued, “you learned a truth about our stable that nopony alive today ever suspected. Our foolishness is only compounded by how easily it was to find. Cobol confirmed the existence and the authenticity of the files you presented. They weren’t even hidden.

“They were just...somewhere that we never needed to bother looking,” the mare sighed, deflating somehow even more than she had appeared when Arginine and I had entered. She waved a hoof at the box, “Director Moondancer was quite the meticulous record keeper. She retained all of the information and memorandums that she was issued by Stable-Tec, the Ministry of Arcane Science, and the Ministry of Wartime Technology.

“I could only wish that her predecessors had been so thorough. Their records are much more spotty,” she shrugged, “but that hardly matters. The truth is quite plain to see: we’ve been misled. Our mandate...is a farce.”

These ponies had been plotting to exterminate all of the ponies on the surface. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what the ultimate body count would have been had they succeeded. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Millions? It wasn’t like a census had been conducted in the last couple of centuries. These ponies wouldn’t have cared; they’d have killed as many as they could. They had already slaughtered untold hundreds as it was―maybe even thousands, given where I’d suspected Constance had been campaigning before her army had arrived at Shady Saddles.

Ponies on the surface would have thought these stable relics monstrous, and it would have been hard to argue otherwise. Yet, despite all that, I found myself pitying this poor mare. I’d been where she was. I’d had my entire perception of the world yanked abruptly out from under my hooves and confronted with an unpalatable truth. Jackboot, my guardian, confidant, mentor, and adopted father―the pony I’d been ready to give myself to forever and always―had turned out to be a White Hoof; a member of the same organization that had terrorized the Neighvada Valley since the end of the Great War. All my life, it turned out that I was being raised by my greatest enemy.

I’d questioned so much about myself in the wake of that revelation. What I might have become if I’d remained ignorant of the truth for much longer? What atrocities had I inadvertently committed in my life over all those years, trusting in the word of a White Hoof tribal raider? How many of those ‘legitimate bounties’ had actually been assassinations, or just outright acts of banditry? I couldn’t ever know for sure, and the thought of how high that number could be created a tight knot of dread deep in my gut.

“What happened in the past doesn’t matter,” I told the mare. It was easy to sound sincere on the matter. After all, I had to believe it too, “what’s important is what you do going forward. Doing better, especially when you know you’ve done wrong.”

Zara looked over her shoulder once more, a tired expression on her face, “that’s a wonderfully saccharine sentiment, dear; but I’m not quite so detached from reality to believe it’s true,” she looked away once more, “we have made a great many mistakes. Worse, I fear that the most egregious of them cannot be undone.”

I glanced from the Overmare to Foxglove, “what’s that supposed to mean? We can undo everything. Just, you know, stop!”

The stable mare hung her head. It was Foxglove who provided the answer, “she’s already tried to contact General Constance. She won’t stand down. She thinks it’s all a trick,” the mare frowned, “I think she’s mostly just pissed off that we survived. She sounded like she was taking it as a personal insult.”

“Constance is the flagship of our next strain,” Zara said, lifting her head once more, though her tone continued to sound as drained as before, “the Nu Strain. Ruthless, cunning, and exceedingly intelligent. They were designed to be the perfect commanders for our Kappa Strain forces during our campaign. By their nature, they are also very suspicious as well. It was a designed feature, in the hopes that it would make them better able to spot ambushes and traps that the enemy might try to set.

“Admittedly, this can manifest as paranoia,” the Overmare sighed and gave another shrug, “however, our design team considered this to be a nonissue; after all, while out in the Wasteland, everything would be out to get them. It was felt that the trait would actually be of some benefit in the long run.

“Of course, now that aspect of her psyche means that there is nothing that can be said or done to persuade her to stand down. She recognizes only that the stable is in danger, and thus her mission. She will stop at nothing to complete that mission. She will certainly not for a moment believe that the mission is being rescinded.”

“So we can’t stop her from attacking with her army,” horseapples. I’d finally managed to get here and get through to their leader, and it still didn’t matter. There was going to be a bodycount anyway. Even though I’d done my best, it still left a bitter taste in my mouth to know that I’d ultimately failed, “what about the ponies here? Will they accept the news?”

“Fortunately,” Zara nodded, casting an eye back at Arginine, “most of our staff are Lambda and Theta Strains. Dispassion was favored in their psychological profiles, as well as adaptability. They aren’t concerned so much with what the mission is as they are with fulfilling it. Isn’t that right...Arginine, was it?” the stallion nodded. The mare’s eyes darted back down to me, “in hindsight, this appears to have been something of an oversight as well, as he was able to use the parameters of that mission and broaden them to include treason,” I was briefly concerned by her statement, but then I caught her faint smile being directed at the larger stallion.

“In light of both of these glaring oversights,” the Overmare continued, “I am left wondering exactly how capable our design team actually is. They were designed to be perfect at their jobs―or as perfect as can be―but it occurs to me only now that the ponies who decided that the team was perfectly designed...might not have actually been particularly good at their jobs,” a wry smirk crossed her lips, “we appear to have taken quite a bit for granted, honestly.”

“How does something like this even happen?” I asked.

It was Foxglove who answered this time, “as best we can tell, it all started with Gattaca.”

I recognized the name, as it hadn’t been all that long ago since I’d stumbled across it, “the mare who was the only survivor of her scouting team, or whatever it was?”

“Indeed,” Zara nodded, “she was eventually elevated to the position of Overmare later in her life. She is apparently the true mastermind behind our ‘superiority mandate’. She directed that the stored embryos be used as the foundation for our genetic research, and through them developed the Alpha Strain.”

“And everypony just let her?”

“They were never given a choice,” Foxglove replied, “Gattaca killed everypony else in the stable.”

“She what? How?!”

“The same way we triggered the initial lockdown,” the violet unicorn said, “except she used something a little more toxic than helium. Then she just shut off the safeties and waited for everypony to die while she waited it out―probably while wearing some sort of personal air mask or whatever. Once everypony else was out of the way, she grew her first batch of ponies.”

“She could easily have used the incubators’ educational software to teach those first Alphas to operate the stable effectively, as well as convincing them that the purpose of the stable was to launch her campaign of genocide,” the Overmare added.

“With nopony from the stable left alive who knew any better…” Foxglove spread her hooves and trailed off. There was no need to finish the sentence. After all, we’d seen the results for ourselves. Though she did add, “the kicker? This stable’s new plan has only been in effect for about fifty years. But Zara here is the fifth Overmare since Gattaca.”

“How does that work?” I glanced at the older mare.

“Once we have been made obsolete by a new strain, the standard protocol is to submit ourselves for disposal. Our bodies are recycled back into the next generation.”

“But, I mean, you look, well...old,” I said a little awkwardly, not trying to sound as insulting as it probably came out.

“A consequence of the maturation process,” the mare said in reply, only smiling at my sheepishness, “Overmare specimens receive a significantly more extensive education, and so we must spend longer in the tanks, and are subject to a longer period of our genetically programmed rapid development. Despite my appearance to the contrary, I am only about seven years old.”

“Oh…” another thought occurred to me, “what ever happened to Gattaca? Fifty years isn’t that long.”

“Heart attack,” Foxglove replied matter-of-factly, “not long into her program either. Not only is this stable operating under a false directive, it barely got any guidance from the mare who created it in the first place.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I sighed, shaking my head. I looked over at Arginine to see how he was taking all of this, “no wonder your stable’s whole plan didn’t seem so well thought out. It wasn’t. You were all co-opted by some crazy mare who wanted to destroy the world for―” I blinked and then looked at the other two mares, “wait, why exactly did Gattaca want to do all of this anyway?”

“Well,” Foxglove said, “that part wasn’t super clear. At least, she never said much in any of her notes beyond ‘the surface ponies deserve to be wiped out’ and stuff like that. However, I did a little digging into the records and I found out something interesting about one of the other ponies listed as being a part of that last mission to the surface: A Miss Telomere. Gattaca’s daughter.”

I let out a deep sigh. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? “You’re telling me that this whole thing probably started because a mare lost her daughter to raiders and went off the deep end?”

“Strictly speaking, Gattaca never clarified who or what killed her team,” the unicorn clarified, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if they got jumped by White Hooves or something,” she looked over at Zara, “that would explain why they were at the top of the extermination list specifically by name. They really don’t call out any other groups in any specific order.”

I felt myself deflate, “that can’t be the reason!” I whined, “it can’t be that simple! This whole thing―the thousands of deaths―can’t all be just because somepony’s child died!” that was stupid! Of all the reasons for so much misery, I refused to believe that the root cause could be so...so...mundane! The original purpose behind this stable―launching an assault on the remnants of the zebras effectively from beyond the grave of Equestria sounded way more plausible reason to have gone through all of the effort demonstrated here. It was exactly the kind of convoluted and spiteful course of action I’d come to expect from the same ponies that had blown up the world.

But a grieving mother taking things too far? That was―it was just―

A mangled foal’s body laying next to the corpse of his mother.

...it wasn’t so very much unlike how I’d behaved.

In the wake of my own losses as a filly, I’d sworn bloody vengeance on all White Hooves and raiders in the Wasteland. I’d dedicated my life to killing as many as I could. The biggest difference between me and Gattaca was the resources that we’d had at our disposal to follow through on our vows. I’d had a few guns and my own hooves. She’d had a stable designed to spit out an army. Would I have, in those first months after losing my family, have sent an army at the White Hooves in the hope of exterminating the lot of them? Almost certainly.

Eventually, though it had taken many years, and a lot of suffering, I’d started to change my mind. Not as quickly as I should have. The image of that broken foal would serve as a lifelong reminder of my failure to learn; and it would hopefully continue to spur me to to better in the future. But I liked to believe that I was making an effort. That I was trying to do better.

Gattaca never got the chance to get over her grief, assuming that she even could have. She’d died in the midsts of it, and left behind a stable full of ponies who had been taught nothing but her animosity towards the surface as the foundations for building their own futures. The ponies in this stable were a mother’s desire for revenge given form. With nary a reason to give any thought elsewhere.

It really could be that simple.

I hung my head in resignation, “never mind,” I sighed, bitterly, “it doesn’t even matter anymore. The ponies here have been stopped, but we still need to figure out how to deal with Constance,” I glanced between the two mares, “I don’t suppose that you guys have any ideas there?”

Foxglove shook her head, “afraid not. She won’t listen, and she’s determined to complete her campaign of genocide at any cost. After all, it’s the entire reason she was created in the first place.”

“How can we have managed to have so much go right, only for it to not matter?” I groaned in frustration. Even after everything we’d managed to accomplish in the stable, it didn’t affect how we’d need to approach dealing with Constance. We still could just hide out in the stable and let her keep us here while she went on slaughtering ponies on the surface. She had to be fought and summarily defeated.

Though, we might not be nearly as outnumbered as we had been. I looked to Zara, “I don’t suppose we can count on your stable’s help here?”

The Overmare smiled sadly, but she nodded, “I have made the records available to the network and instructed all the residents to look them over. Ultimately, this was our stable’s mistake. It is only right that we should have a hoof in fixing it,” I felt my mood lifting at the thought of adding the better part of five hundred more ponies to our numbers, “though I feel compelled to point out that few here are designed or proficient at fighting,” she warned, “the Kappas under Constance’s command are more than a match for the Lambdas and Thetas here.”

That did take a little of the wind out from under my wings, but I was still glad for the boost in numbers regardless, “I’ll take a few hundred RGs in a fight like this any day! You ponies are still tougher than we are,” I looked at Foxglove, “we need to get the word out and get every free hoof we have outside and digging in. Constance will be here in less than a day. That’s not a lot of time to fortify our defenses.”

“Keri, Yeoman, Hemlock, and Griselda are all outside right now drawing up plans,” the violet mare assured me. I was relieved to hear that capable hooves were already getting things in motion, “I’ll call them up and let them know to factor the stable ponies into their defenses.”

For the first time in weeks, I felt like a great weight had been lifted off of me. Sure, we were far from out of the fire quite yet, but the addition of the ponies here turned down the heat considerably. We’d not only rid ourselves of an enemy, but we’d gained an ally. A little pink earth pony was regarding four other little ponies with a very smug expression on her face, and receiving quite a few eyerolls for her trouble. I trotted over to where Zara was still standing by the observation window and extended my hoof to her, “thank you; for listening.”

The Overmare smiled and bumped her hoof to mine, “and thank you for forcing the truth down our throats. A bitter pill, to be sure, but a necessary one.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little. Then I noted a purple clint that caught not just my eye, but the gaze of a menagerie of little ponies in my head. I looked over at the box which contained Moondancer’s personal effects. Half-buried beneath a stack of books was a little purple tail. Curious, I reached in and shifted the books aside, revealing a small statue of a purple unicorn that was of a style that I was quite familiar with by now. I swore I heard a collective gasp inside my head but shook the sensation away. I picked the figurine up and glanced at its base: Be Smart!

An identical purple unicorn joined the others and the sextuplet came together in a massive, tear-filled, hugathon that was actually a little sweet to behold. I glanced over at Zara, “I don’t suppose that it’s alright for me to take this?” I reached into my saddlebag and opened it for the mare to see, exposing the other statuettes, “I think it’s part of a set…”

The Overmare’s eyes widened slightly as she looked from the contents of my bag to the figurine in my hoof. Then she flashed me a broad smile and nodded, “I suppose that for a possible list of demands, that’s an acceptably benign one.”

“Thanks,” I said and allowed the relief of the violet unicorn to join the others. I closed up the bag and looked back toward Arginine and Foxglove, “So, I know that we’ve got plans to make and a battle to get ready for,” my hoof moved to my stomach as I flashed the pair a sheepish smile, “but I feel like I’m about to starve to death and I’d really like to get back to that orchard before those mercs manage to clear out every last apple…”

Level Up!
Perk Added: Ninja - You can't defend against what you can't see coming! Additional damage dealt to unaware targets.
Speech Skill 75!

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