Spike felt his heart grow heavy as he heard Twilight's voice from across the waste. She was in pain, out if her own body. As he walked with his group, he began to slow down. His friend was suffering, and he was walking away from her. He shook his head and turned around, and felt Winslow's hand grab his shoulder. "Would you let go?!" Spike snapped as he knocked Winslow's hand away. "I'm not going to run away from her! She's in pain! She needs my help!"

"Spike, I understand your dilemma, but you cannot charge headfirst into danger whenever you're friends are in peril! You are not strong enough to face what's out there. Twilight will be fine, Spike. Gek will have to take time unraveling her mind. He's never corrupted an alicorn before." Winslow tried to talk sense into Spike, but he wouldn't have it. "You cannot hold the life of one friend or family member above everypony else!"

"What do you know about friends or family, Winslow?!" Spike exploded as he gave him a shove, and Winslow bowed his head, containing his own rage.

"Spike!" Fluttershy broke off from the others and ran over to Winslow. Draven and Gin joined her as well. "Please, don't say such things!"

"Oh, and, of course, you defend him!" Spike growled at her, and Fluttershy stepped back, her eyes filling with tears. "What about Twilight?! We can't just-!" Spike stopped as a loud 'bang' echoed across the wasteland. Gin fired her blunderbuss in the air.

"Shut the fuck up, Spike!" Gin shouted at him as she holstered her blunderbuss. "We're going to help her, but we can't do it if we can't communicate with one another in this hellhole! We're taking out that tower first, then we worry about Twilight!"

Spike regained his composure, but he looked down at the ground with a scowl as he shook off Fluttershy, who was trying to calm him down. He ran ahead of the group and crossed his arms, returning to a brisk walking pace as he secluded himself from the others. He wanted to run, to scream, but he knew such actions were adolescent. He fastened his jacket as he walked along, and he bit his lip in frustration as his mind wandered, thinking about Twilight scared and alone. It killed him inside to think about it.

Rainbow Dash and Masami kept their distance from him, but they were close enough to make sure he was okay. Rainbow Dash reached into the pocket of her suit and pulled out a bottle of pop she saved from the mess hall in Brandon Outpost, it was a Quantum Kick Cola. She cracked off the cap with her bottom molar and took a sip. It was sweet and fizzy like it should've been, and as she took another drink, she thought of Twilight as well. It seemed like she forgot about Twilight over the past couple days, and she scoffed a little as she remembered her. She found it funny how ponies begin to notice others once they're gone, how ponies take what they have for granted. Twilight was one of the few ponies in the world that she could trust wholeheartedly. She let the fizzy soda sit in her mouth for a moment as she ruminated on her thoughts, and she gulped it down as she shook her head. Masami's eyes gravitated towards Rainbow Dash's half-empty bottle, and their eyes met for a moment.

"May I have a sip? Sorry, I haven't had anything to drink since we left Brandon Outpost." Masami asked. "I have my canteen, but that doesn't beat Quantum Kick." Rainbow Dash handed her the bottle and she took a long drink from it until it was down to a quarter. "Kind of ironic, though, how they advertise this drink as a thirst-quencher, yet it's quite the opposite." There was an awkward silence, and she handed the bottle to Rainbow Dash as they kept walking together. "You must really love Twilight, huh?"

"W-what?!" Rainbow Dash misunderstood Masami's statement. "What do you mean?"

"Not that way, Kitten..." Masami assured Rainbow Dash. "I meant as a friend."

"Well yeah, me and Twilight have known each other for years." Rainbow Dash told her as she took one last sip of the syrupy drink then tossed the empty bottle aside into the window of an old police station. "It's hard to leave her alone like this, but I can understand why we're doing this. Twilight's tough, tougher than she knows, and I know she'll get out of this mess."

"I'm surprised you aren't as mad as Spike," Masami stated as she walked along the street with Rainbow Dash, eyeing the decrepit stores and buildings as they talked. "It's weird to see you this calm."

"Yeah, I'm just... kinda in shock a little. It's weird to not have Twilight around me." Rainbow Dash went on as she stepped over the cracks in the pavement. "I can't wrap my head around it really... I mean, it's so strange. Part of me wants to pout with Spike, but... I guess-." She trailed off and tried to rearrange her sentence. "I guess I'm just enjoying the silence. I feel like such an ass saying that. It's weird... maybe I pay attention to my friends too much. I never take the time to worry about how I'm doing, you know? And to think, Twilight had to get corrupted by a sorcerer and kidnapped for me to realize this."

"Don't feel bad. Realizations like these can come at the worst of times." Masami gave a light laugh to try and cheer her up, and it worked for a brief moment. Masami could tell Rainbow Dash was having a serious personal crisis. "It's not your fault, Rainbow Dash, really it's not. It's not selfish to worry about your own well-being from time to time, even in this kind of a situation."

"Thanks." Rainbow Dash was still unsure about her predicament. It was hard to focus on serious subjects. "It's... not -. Damn, I wish I could talk to other ponies about this kind of shit!" Rainbow Dash shook her head a little as she tried to hold in her frustration. "I-."

Masami rested her head on Rainbow Dash's shoulder as they walked together, and she whispered into the pegasus' ear. "We don't have to talk about it anymore if you don't want to."

"I can see the tower." Edgar said as he looked down at all of his friends, his shadow looming over them all. "We should be there in about thirty minutes."

Liazo looked up and saw the antennae of the radio station in the distance. He turned to Evelyn for details. "What should we be expecting, Evelyn?"

"Dr. Gearza will be sending all of his skeletons. He doesn't want us to destroy that radio tower. Without it, his allies will lose more than half of their army." Evelyn explained as she walked beside Butch, who was fiddling with his revolver. "It will be much easier to take on this cult and retrieve the stone without those beasts backing their forces."

"The sooner we get to Twilight the better..." Winslow added, giving a nod to Spike. But the angered dragon didn't notice. "Gek may have control over her body, but it will take a little bit less than a day for him to fully take hold of her mind. This is our window. If we do not get to her in time, she will be consumed forever, and the Stone of Mind will be unleashed."

"How do you know so much about this stone?" Evelyn inquired with a suspicious tone in her voice.

"Like I've said to many others, I am a paladin. My brethren and I know all there is to know about The Blacklands, including its histories and secrets. The Order kept extensive records of past events, and we must know them by heart to become a fully-fledged paladin." Winslow replied with a sharpness in his voice, not offended, but bold. Evelyn nodded, satisfied with his answer. "However, I am unfamiliar with the history of the stone in Ausrüstung, can you inform me?"

"Certainly..." Evelyn adjusted her glasses and began to recall the story in her mind before reciting it. "As you know, two-hundred years ago, the four founders fled to The Blacklands after being forced out by the Equestrians. Soon after we found our place on the west coast, we began to spread out and expand our reach. Our troops pushed the Zhophziis tribes of Sharrzej out, and we went as far south as The Sands of Faashar."

"Isn't that cruel? What you did to those tribes you ousted?" Fluttershy questioned the morals of the early empire of Ausrüstung and became quite passionate as she evaluated the decisions made by the ponies of Ausrüstung so long ago.

"It was, and I won't deny that. That is the whole reason our two nations despise each other to this day, and the reason why the miriads to the east hate us so much as well." Evelyn went on as she fiddled with a piece of tech she pulled out of her pocket; it looked like a rubber ball, but it had various flashing lights on it. "Anyways, The Old Republic of Ausrüstung was growing, and discovering so many amazing wonders. However, our greatest discovery was in an old tomb, the resting place of an ancient cult, similar to the cult we are dealing with currently. Inside the tomb, locked away in an ancient cubical container was the stone. Our scientists brought it back to Eisen and began experimenting, they wanted to unlock the well of knowledge buried within the stone, and they came so close. After decades of experimentation, Ivan Aquarius and the rest of the A.M.S fabricated the first AI, an artificial intelligence to be used in machines. This changed everything."

"And you used that in your robots? The dampfriesens?" Draven asked as he joined in on the discussion. Being a storyteller himself, Draven was all for learning more about the history of The Blacklands.

"Yes, but dampfriesens have very low intelligence, and only take orders from the mainframes." Evelyn answered his question but raised another in the process.

"Mainframes?" Gin wondered.

"They are the crowning achievement of Ausrüstung, the command centers for foreign and domestic security. The mainframes act as instructors. They give orders, and the dampfriesens follow, like a colony of ants and their queen if you will. They use the most sophisticated AI in existence, and there are only four- well, three of them I should say." Evelyn said as she fixated on the strange device in her hand more and more. She began to derail and lose interest for a moment, but she snapped out of it after a long gap in the discussion that she hoped the others would fill.

"What's that contraption you got there?" Butch's age showed as he pointed down at the odd sphere with intrigue. Evelyn tried containing her laughter, but a small snort escaped her snout.

"It's an EMP grenade. I've been working on implementing guidance systems into this device, but my efforts have been fruitless so far. I've been trying to make it hover, but the a-grav chip doesn't seem to want to respond. Blast." Evelyn toyed with the machine in a more frantic manner, but then her toying escalated to the point where she was simply infuriated, and she violently mashed the buttons on the grenade. Butch chuckled a little, and snatched the grenade from her hands, opening it up to fix the problem. "What are you doing? Do you even know how to-..." Evelyn trailed off as Butch handed it back to her after he rearranged a few parts within the device. She tossed it in the air, and it hovered above her head, whirring and beeping as it detected its surroundings and awaited Evelyn's order.

"There you go." Butch said as he lit a cigar and tossed his burnt-up match on the ground.

"How did you-?" Evelyn lost her words as she grabbed the grenade out of the air and put it back in her lab coat pocket.

"I used grenades like that back in the day," Butch remembered his past experiences regarding the civil war and the robots utilized by the northern district. "Back when..." Butch heard gunfire sound in his mind, like roaring thunder. It shook him on the inside, and his breathing became rapid. He stopped and stepped back. Evelyn realized what was happening right away and grabbed his hands, trying to prevent him from rummaging through his pockets for his pills. Butch then ripped off his helmet and dropped it.

"What's happening to him?" Fluttershy asked Evelyn as the whole group stopped.

"He's having... gastric distress. Please, just go on ahead, we'll be alright." Evelyn insisted as she shooed everypony away. "We'll be fine."

"Let's go." Masami ordered them with a hint of reluctance, but she knew Evelyn would take care of him.

Butch was often stricken with tremors and cold flashes whenever he remembered the sounds of war. The blood, the horror, it would come rushing back to him in an instant, and he was helpless when it happened. The others believed Butch was beyond saving, that the pills would help him, but Evelyn knew needed more than that. The pills were experimental, developed by doctors to treat shell-shock, but they had terrible side effects like increased irritability and anxiety disorders; she didn't trust the medication, and she went to great lengths to discourage him from taking it.

Evelyn found the bottle of pills in his utility belt and tossed them aside, the glass in the bottle shattering as it hit the half destroyed concrete wall of an old general store. Butch didn't seem to notice, he was too lost in the cacophony of his subconscious. Evelyn grabbed his hands and tried to hold them steady, but Butch's mechanical arms began to rattle violently, and he mumbled incoherently as he shook his head. He started crying as his eyes twitched rapidly, and he felt the world grow dark around him as he heard the screams of children, heard the cries of mothers searching for their child, felt their pain and agony as his hands tensed over and over again.

"Butch, Butch... look at me. Stay with me, okay?" Evelyn removed her glasses and grabbed his head to help him focus. "Please, I need you to come back, okay? I need you to look at me."

Butch shook his head frantically as he looked away, as shaking his head was the only action he could manage in that state. His breathing began to slow as he stared down at the shattered glass on the ground, and he fell to his knees. Evelyn followed, and dropped down to his level, trying to help him through his episode.

"Please, Butch... look at me." Evelyn had tears streaming down her face as she reached out to him, and she trembled as Butch's eyes moved to the side until they final met with hers. "Look at me..."

"Rosie?" Butch's muttered weakly as he wiped a hanging tear off of Evelyn's cheek, peering deep into her soul as he stared at her magenta eyes, reaching into her being to find somepony else that wasn't there.

"My name is Evelyn, Butch..."

"Evelyn..." Butch was lost for a moment once again as he stared into space, and as he came to he closed his eyes. His body jerked as his eyelids popped open, and his breathing hastened into a terrified pant as if he had just dunked his head into a bowl filled with ice-water. As his breathing slowed, he looked back to her. "Evelyn."

"Yes, Butch it's me..." Evelyn smiled as she put her glasses back on and stood up. "Are you okay?"

"You're cryin' darlin'..." Butch stood up with her and wiped away her remaining tears. Again, he completely forgot about his own pain, focusing only on hers. He left his hand on her cheek.

Evelyn remembered when she was little, growing up in her father's mansion all alone with no one to talk to except Butch when he visited. She remembered that long night when there was a thunderstorm when she'd slept with him for comfort. He was the one who cared for her, who listened to her whenever she had a brilliant idea. He was her rock, her only friend, the father she wished she had. Now as an adult, Evelyn wanted to help Butch, understand him. But alas, she never truly knew him, because he never let her in. She only caught glimpses of his past, brief flashes of light; sudden like one of his the matches he used to light his cigars, burning out just like that.

"I'm fine, Butch..." Evelyn said as she set her hand on his. She knew her comfort would bring him solace. "I'm okay..."

"Masami... will they be alright by themselves?" Rainbow Dash looked back; Butch and Evelyn were far away, but still visible.

"Yeah, they're fine." Masami gave her a warm smile as they continued. The radio station was on the horizon, and they were all ready. Broken, scarred, angry, but ready. "They're fine..."

Author's Notes:

Certainly a roller-coaster, huh? Thanks for reading, and as always, I hope you enjoyed! See you in the next chapter!