Chapter Seven: The Master

The base's walls, fixtures, and almost everything else were decayed in some way. The metal rusted and the wood rotted, but the ancient building stood through it all- including nuclear annihilation. The caravan was stopped at the front entrance, and a super mutant lookout yelled something in somewhat broken English to the head cultist. He replied with a series of words that did not form a proper sentence, obviously a code of some sort. The large doors opened, and we were allowed entry. The head cultist told us to follow him, and the rest of the cultists and the brahmin went another way, probably straight to the lab, where they'd meet their respective fates. The long corridors of the base were lined with cameras, turrets, and guarding super mutants. They were really intimidating, but paid us almost no mind as we entered the second floor. Then I noticed something peculiar. Something was off.

I heard noises, whispers. Nobody else seemed to notice them. I had a gut feeling that I was being watched. My insecurity and anxiety were beginning to grow intolerable, and I wanted to scream. Then came the moment. The moment I realized my situation.

"You can't scare me." I thought, saying the words to myself in my mind, "get out of my head."

In response, the hallucinations intensified, and I began to see things. I glimpsed the Main Six as I'd seen them weeks ago, ready to kill me for acts I hadn't committed. Twilight's words that day echoed in my mind, the ones about my supposed attempt to destroy Equestria, the ones about me being a complete monster. They hadn't produced what I thought was the desired effect in me, however. I had complete knowledge of that day; it wasn't like me to forget the day I'd suffered my only serious wound, ever. Discord had them corrupted that day, and those words were not her own. What was the purpose of this image? It faded as we entered the room which contained The Master himself. I stood there, in the center of the room, staring intently at the distorted, evil being before me. It didn't synthesize any speech, so I decided I'd have to break the ice. I stuck my hands in my pockets, feeling the pulse grenades, and began pacing.

"So, your great 'Unity' is at hand once more, I see."

"What is it that you, a mere child, think you can accomplish?" The Master's computerized voices asked.

"Well, I could talk to you, or I could destroy you," I said. The Master laughed with his creepy voices.

"I have an idea of what your companions can do. You cannot destroy me, that's impossible. You might be able to defeat your companions, however. I will watch this with delight."

I turned around to face my allies. Both ponies were standing stock-still, then they both slowly turned their heads in my direction. Darn. That was the purpose of the image. He was turning them against me.

"Zach, why did you do it?" Twilight asked, her voice heavy with conviction. I could only sigh.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said, "what did I do this time?"

"You know what you've done, you good-for-nothing monster!" Rainbow surged forward, and was hovering in front of my face. She didn't hit me, at least, not yet. Pure hate could be seen in her eyes. I turned around.

"So you've decided to pit me against my friends like Discord did? How very-"

Rainbow collided with my back, sending me several meters forward. I turned around, and saw Twilight's horn glowing. She was moving closer to me.

"We're no friends of yours!" Twilight called, charging her spell. I rolled, and narrowly avoided a magical blast. The next second, Dash was on me, repeatedly landing a flurry of blows on my face with her hooves before I pushed her off. She was lighter than I thought. I felt my backpack open, and Spike tumbled out.

I shrugged off my backpack and struggled to my feet. I pulled both pulse grenades from my pockets, and primed them. Rainbow hit my back again, and I was sent to the ground, still clutching the grenades. I was only about five meters from The Master now- I couldn't miss.

"You still haven't learned that you can be bested, have you?" I rolled the grenades into the base of the apparatus upon which The Master was mounted. "It's time that you did."

The grenades exploded. The Master screamed with his myriad of voices as the electronics allowing him to survive were destroyed. The super mutant guards, who'd obviously been told not to do anything, aimed their laser rifles at me. Rainbow and Twilight both switched from angry to confused at that moment, to my relief.

"You did it!" Spike said, jumping with joy.

I felt the extent of my injuries now. Rainbow's assaults had taken the wind out of me, bruised my ribs, maybe, gave me a pretty big nosebleed and a black eye, but nothing I was too worried about. It hurt a lot, though. I moved closer to my companions.

"Take him down!" The head cultist had seen it all. I closed my eyes. I was about to be fried, this was it. I heard their rifles discharge several times, and nothing happened. I opened my eyes. Twilight had erected a spherical barrier, refracting their shots. Wasting no time, I took the laser rifle from my backpack and began frantically putting it together. Rainbow stood at the edge of the barrier, ready to take on anything that charged through, be it a seven-foot-tall super mutant or not.

The laser rifle was in three pieces. I screwed one half of the body onto the other, inserted the stock, and put in the microfusion cell. I keyed overcharge. Assembling such a complex machine couldn't have been easier.

"Ring of fire!" I called. The stand-off lasted several minutes, more mutants entered the room, six in all now. A general alarm sounded, and the mutants looked around, distracted.

"Now!" I called, to do what I did not know, but Twilight did something clever. She extended the barrier outward, knocking all of the mutants over, then charged a combat spell of some kind. I fired my laser rifle at the mutants, its overcharged beams and Twilight's magic taking them down in mere seconds. I reloaded the laser rifle.

"Was that really necessary? I mean... they're humans, aren't they?" Twilight obviously didn't relish the idea of killing, and she'd just done so. In fact, I had done so, too. I didn't feel much in the form of guilt. The Master was a monster, and these super mutants were this monster's monstrous peons. The cult leader was nowhere to be found. The building shook, from an explosion somewhere. I wondered what had caused it.

"I don't like the look of this..." Spike retreated into the relative safety of my backpack.

"When they turned into these, they lost all of what they were before. Come on, we've got to find that man." I winced as I tried to get moving again.

"Are you going to be alright?" Twilight asked, concerned by my minor wounds.

"I'm sure I will, The Master made you and Rainbow angry at me like Discord did. You didn't impale me this time, but Rainbow laid down a beating," I explained.

"Sorry..." the pegasus said, apologetically.

"It wasn't you, it was him." I pointed at the now-dead Master. How he'd managed to survive the Vault Dweller's actions, I did not know, but he was dead now. After taking several plasma grenades off of the dead mutants, we were off in search of our target.

Moving slowly through the halls, Twilight using her magic to take down super mutants quietly and non-fatally- at her insistance-, we heard a noise coming from outside, almost like a helicopter. I looked out of a window, and to my astonishment, a Vertibird was performing a strafing run on the base's grounds. Missiles streaked toward it, but it was obvious that whoever was piloting the thing knew what they were doing. So that had been our diversion.

"The captive is on the second floor, directly below you," the voice in my arm said.

The staircase was blocked by a squad of six super mutants, clad in some sort of metal armor, clearly smarter than the rest. I was met by minigun fire, and I felt three really hard impacts before I took cover around a corner. I was relieved to find that the armor had stopped the small rounds fired by the massive weapon. I primed two plasma grenades. Grenades were solving all of the problems today, weren't they? I threw them around the corner, and with a peculiar noise, they detonated. I peered around the corner, and made a sound of disgust. The mutants were now mostly green goop. We proceeded.

The holding cell block of the base was guarded by a pair of super mutants, who Twilight immobilized with her telekinesis before their miniguns had spun up. She'd learned that one herself. She moved them into a cell and shut the door. Their yells of fury were ignored as we looked for our target. Sitting in a cell in the far end of the room was the man I'd seen in Canterlot three weeks ago. He didn't look so well, obviously malnourished.

"Ahah, now I'm even more insane! The small horses and the kid are here to keep me company again!"

"We're taking you home."

"No, I'm dead, I can't go home. I died and went to this hell, then you come here to make it worse for me!"

"Come on." He didn't move.

I shot the lock off with my rifle, and opened the door. "Come on! We're getting out of here."

Out of a barred window I saw the Vertibird pass over again, still wreaking havoc outside, evidently. The man stood up.

"What have I got to lose?"

We left the base soon after, and found that the Vertibird's ordinance was not wasted; the entire outside portion of the base was levelled, and fires were burning out of control.

"Mission accomplished, Stross," I said into my arm.

"Nicely done! With The Master gone, the Brotherhood can focus on its primary goals instead. Thank you for your assistance, we couldn't have done it without you."

"Now, can you disable this implant? You can disable this man's, too, he's safe."

"Sure thing. Farewell."

The implant went dead, and I opened my portal. Dropping Twilight, Spike, and Rainbow back in Equestria, I brought the man back with me to Earth. The man called a cab, happy to be back home. I walked home, exhausted, and got there at around dinner time. There I was, coming home from a fictional universe wearing combat armor and with a laser rifle. I went straight to bed.

End of part I