Having fallen down an elevator shaft the pain was oddly only mildly excruciating, mostly because all I felt was a throbbing headache. I couldn't feel the rest of my body, which made me fear that I broke my neck, which would be the least of my worries. As it turned out, my body was laying on the other side of the shaft, sprawled across the broken brittle bones of a long dead security pony.

“Well fuck.” I huffed out loud, pausing at the surprise I could talk again. I could only guess that I was still dreaming. Which was a conclusion my headache would strongly disagree with. My other guess was that this was some magical bullshit, of which, I was not amused if that happened to be the case.

My body stirred, slowly getting up. I watched as it sat up across from my head, and shuffled about like it was looking around. Next thing it did was move a hoof to where my head should be, waving it over the empty void, then proceeded to panic, flailing its hooves around as I rolled my eyes at it. A strange black mist slowly crept out of my bodies neck, spreading out as the panicked swings wafted it around.

I sighed, the feeling of wrongness washing over me. “‘I’m over here!” I called out, and surprisingly, my body stopped panicking. My body quickly turned and trotted up to me, hoofing across my face uncomfortably before it lifted my head up. Unceremoniously, my body placed my head straight down across my back. It was strange that I could feel that my body was happy, a feeling made obvious when it did a little prance that nearly threw my head off itself again. “Oh no, put me back on my neck,” I scolded… myself. This dream was getting too weird, even for me. “I am not riding shotgun on my own body.”

My head was swiftly placed back where it belonged, and the feeling of the rest of my body returned to me. Lifting a leg, I rotate my mechanical hoof, and swished my tail, finding that everything felt as it should. The only thing that felt off was the numbness that still hung around my neck. While it was an odd feeling, it at least made me glad that it didn’t burn anymore. But the fact that my head could detach from my body was more than concerning. Tightening my scarf around my neck, the threads creaked from the strain. Looking down at it, the poor thing was in need of repairs, filled with holes, and torn around the edges. Honestly, I was just glad that it had held together as well as it had and covered up the mark around my neck.

Finally getting this weirdness behind me, I looked around my surrounding, finding that I was on top of an elevator. Locating and opening the emergency hatch, light hit my eyes. It blinded me for a few seconds, and I shielded my eyes with a hoof as upbeat and repetitive music hit my ears.

Lowering myself down, the large elevator looked normal other than a spray of blood that was on the floor. One side of the splatter had a straight edge, indicating that somepony must have gotten shot on the other side while the doors were open. Calming my nerves, I pulled out my rifle, and pressed the open door button with it. I didn’t see any red dots ahead of me, but with the lurkers around, I couldn't rely of my E.F.S.

The doors opened, and I stepped out into the lobby, it was mostly empty with only bare concrete walls and floor. There was two things in the lobby that stuck out, and neither were exactly pleasant. The first was the upper torso of a pony, and the other was a dead stable-tec security pony. The half pony was sitting up in the middle of the room, facing away from me. Slowly, I crept up onto the half pony, and poked it with my rifle. It fell over, confirming that it was dead. Getting a better look, the dead pony was a mummified equestrian navy soldier, its face contorted into a look of horror.

Moving on, I kept my rifle ready, and left the lobby. I stepped into what first looked like an endless hallway. I knew it didn’t stretch off into darkness forever, but it still gave the illusion of endlessness to me, along with a distant light flicker on for a few second only making the hallway look longer. It clearly wasn’t natural, unless something down here had been expanding Labs D for over two hundred years. Another thing was that the air was stale, dry, and still. Not uncommon for old places like this, but black specks floated through the air like there was a breeze, and a black liquid slowly oozed out of small cracks in the walls.

I put my gasmask on and checked my pipleg. I didn’t have time to deal with more magical bullshit, so I turned on the locator for Harps pipbuck. To my relief, a blue marker on my E.F.S. popped up. Then five more, seven, ten. I turned off the locator. Okay, so my guide to find her had been rendered useless by whatever magical bullshit was going on here. In frustration, I hit the wall. The power hoof strike made a new spidering crack in the concrete wall, which started bleeding black ooze.

“Why, why can't I just get a proper win?” I grunted. “Can't something just go my way for once? Anything at all?”

An icon appeared in my hud, simply displaying ‘Stable-Tec community radio broadcast’. I quickly looked around to see if any pony was messing with me. Seeing no pony, I turned on the radio. Huh, that was… suspiciously convenient timing...

It was marching band music, heavy on the drums, but not so much to drown out the brass instruments. I felt that the music would at least help drown out the vast empty feeling the endless hallway gave off. Of course, I was wrong. The echoing quickly added to it, giving me an even more strong sense of wrongness about this place. I could only keep going forward, but the further I trotted, the less I felt like I was getting anywhere, and the more I felt lost.

The music faded faded, and was replaced by a gravely and wispy voice of a mare. “And so ends the hundred and forty two hour play of Equestria Forever. Next up, a two hundred hour play of the Victory of Ponies, my favorit. But now, I must give praise to the god of the void, to return all to the beginning, to a state of nothingness. A truly marvelous existence free of pain, sorrow, and ego. Whisper more to me, fill me with your truth, let me bear your decaying children.”

I click onto my radio options, switching the locator from Harp, to the radio signal. There was no guarantee if this mare was still alive, but it was at least something I should be able to track. After a few clicks, a green bar appeared on my E.F.S. a clear direction down the hallway, and maybe a way to get back to Harp.

The mare continued her rambling. “I’ve seen it, in my waking dreams. A palace of dust, bathed by the light of a black sun, devouring all things into it. It was glorious, and terrifying, and beyond all I could fathom. The god of the void is the god before there were gods, the god that comes after all gods have died. From ashes, new life can be made. But from dust, all is still, unchanging, perfection. Sweet perfection, unyielding perfection, insurmountable perfection, true and maddening perfection. I have seen it, and it has become me. For I…”

I turned off the radio, her voice only made me more pissed off, as well as made my skin crawl.

After what felt like an hour, I came across a sealed stable-tec door. It wasn’t the one leading to the radio signal, but it was the first door I’d come across down here. Placing my hoof on it, I could feel a strange and powerful magic radiating off from behind it. The panel on the door beeped, and the door itself hissed as it opened. Before me was a vast wasteland of dry brown dirt, gray broken buildings, and red rusted metal.

“The fuck?” I breathed.

Another radio signal appeared in my hud display, this one without a name. Intrigued and left without much else of an explanation, I tuned to it. A stallion spoke up, desperation in his voice.

“If there’s anypony out there, please help us. Our house collapsed when the bombs hit, and we’re trapped in the basement. My wife is hurt, and my foals are sick. I dont know whats going on up there, but if there's any pony out there, please help us.” A long loud beep interrupted the message. “If there’s anypony out there, please help us. Our house collapsed, and were trapped in the basement. My wife is hurt, and my foals are sick. I dont know whats going on up there, but if there's any pony out there, please help us.”

I turned the radio off, knowing full well that they’re likely already long dead.

Something moved from behind the nearby broken buildings, and it made a loud snapping sound. A massive white scorpion crawled over the rubble, bigger than even a paradise dragon. It scuttled on it’s massive legs, holding its tail high into the air as it let out a piercing, chittering screech at me. The monster charged right for me, and I quickly slammed my hoof on the door control panel. There was a loud thud from the door as it slammed shut, and then nothing but silence again. Breath a sigh of relief, I made a mental note to not open any more doors unless I had to.

I quickly continued down the hallway, picking up my pace in hopes to get to wherever the radio signal was coming from. That was until i came across another door that lay down at my hooves. Looking around, I came to a startling realization. I don't know when it happened, but I was now walking on the wall. I carefully stepped around the door, but before I was more halfway passed it, the door decided to open up on its own.

“Hay, any anypony up there? I could use some help!” A stallion called out. I looked over the edge to see a blue shell and glowing green fins Sparkle-Lurker, who was in a green jacket, and had a leather cowpony hat on its head. He was balanced on top of a tall ladder, and below him were a mob of ponies with pitchforks and torches. He reached up his crab hoof. “Care to pull me up? I don't think going back down is a good idea.”

I cocked an eyebrow, and then shrugged. Pulling the lurker up, one of the ponies below threw a flaming pitchfork at us, just nearly missing me. Closing the door, I was left with a new lurker, and even more questions.

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked him as he brushed a layer of dirt and dust off of himself.

“Narrative destructuralization” The lurker responded. I furrowed my brow at him and he nodded back at me. “Sorry, it's a placeholder term my companion uses. It refers to when a story uses time travel and dimension hopping, and because of it the narrative falls apart, as it’s one big deus ex machina”

“Still not following...” I responded.

He looked around, and then at me. “Yeah, can't blame you there. I'm actually a bit confused to how a horse can talk at all. But the spriggion like modifications would answer a lot of questions about you.”

I shook my head, not understanding a damn word the crab was saying. “You know what, I don't fucking care.” Checking the radio signal, I began trotting down the hallway once more. “I’ve got a pony to save.”

The lurker followed me, his green glow reminding me of the glowing ghoul. “Right, so when a person tries to bend time and space magic, which the attempt itself is bad news due to the mass of miasma it would take to power such a spell. Energy like that tends to break down the natural laws. Up become sideways, Harpys stop being spazzes, and random holes to other dimensions and times burst open.”

I groaned, “Does any of that involve you shutting up?”

The lurker ignored me. “It's all so confusing, yet fascinating. Makes me wish I was some studied scholar, and not a poor explorer.”

I saw another door ahead, this one not on the floor, and dashed to it. Opening it, I saw a two legged creature on the other side. It had cybernetic legs and arms, a black dress with a white apron, one eye was yellow, the other green, and long straight yellow mane with a gray streak in it. We looked at each other with a knowing glance, one filled with pain and irritation.

The lurker trotted up to me and looked through the door. On the other side, a Harpy walk into view to stand next to the bipedal creature. Unlike Snowbird, this harpy had vibrant green and blue feathers,. And even though it looked… menacing, it didn't give off the feeling that it wanted to eat me.

I locked eyes with the biped, and we both furrowed our brows. We both grabbed our unwanted companion and shoved them at the door. Unfortunately, Lurkers were heavy fuckers, and by the time I got him to budge, we got a face full of feathers. With a hiss and a bang, the door closed, leaving me with the chatty lurker, and this new harpy.

The harpy dusted itself off, and adjusted its pair of glasses. “Rude. And here I was pondering about the ramifications that such unstable magics can have on the social structures of a pure order civilization.” Again with the talking. “Would they devolve into a theocracy based around the chaos? Or would they steel themselves for a more oppressive sense of order?”

A shrug came from the lurker. “I always bet on those kind of groups breaking up into tribes. It does seem to happen a lot in the history books. But that aside, what was your side like? I got talking horses here?”

“Dreadful. Truly dreadful.” The harp spoke with an overdramatic flare. “It was one big school, and nearly all of them were moody teenagers. Of which I could deal with, if not for that all of them had guns. Oh Orthrus High, you are a terrifying place.”

“Terrible. I just had to deal with overly cheery and friendly cotton candy colored horses.” he then shivered, “All the singing, and dancing, and the pink one kept shooting me with confetti.”

I sighed, and trotted away from the two fools, but of course, the just started following me. They chatted with each other about things I didn't understand, nor did I care too.

We came to another door, this one was on the ceiling. I looked at the two fools and pointed at the door. “Here's your stop, now get the fuck away from me.”

The harpy scratched its chin. “No, I'd have to suggest one upside down, and on the wall. Ceiling and floor portals tend to be from outside connections”

I didn't care, and shot the control panel. The door opened, and the sound of gunfire hit my ears. A gout of flames erupted from the door, and two ponies fell through. To my surprise, one of them was Quicktrot, whom now had a sword in her gut. The other pony holding the sword was a blue coat and wavy green mane mare, her cutie-mark was a sextant over two crossed swords.

Quicktrot looked over at me, and her eyes went wide. “Oh fuck this shit.” She teleported, taking part of the sword with her.

The other mare had jumped away just in time to not lose a leg. “Damit, that was my new fucking sword!” She looked over at me and smiled. “Hey, can I borrow that rifle?”

I pulled my lathanos rifle back. “Fuck off.”

In a blink of an eye, the mare lunged at me. I tried to hit her with my power hoof, but she slid under me, and knocked me over. The mare then got on top of me, and grabbed my rifle. “Sorry love, but got bitches to kill!” she hopped off of me, bounced off the wall, and climbed through the door.

I pulled out my revolver, and fired at the mare, but she just laughed.

“Sorry, I’ll make sure you get your rifle back!” Another mare shouted from the other side of the door, as it closed.

My left eye twitched as I fumed with undirected rage. The two fools trotted ahead of me, avoiding eye contact. Letting myself cool down, I then followed.

The next door was upside down, and on the wall, giving me some hope to get rid of the lurker and the harpy. Hitting the doors panel, I watched it open up to a grassy plain with moss covered ruins surrounding it.

The harpy smiled. “Looks like this is my path home. Thank you miss talking horse.”

“Just go” I told the two.

The lurker trotted on through, but the harpy just scratched its chin. “Miss, I think I may have something that can help you, a shortcut you could say.”

“Oh, finally, now you want to help.” I took a deep breath, and calmed myself down. “ Sorry, I’m just a bit stressed at the moment. If you have anything that can help, I’ll take it.”

“I thought as much. Thought the miasma is weak here, it still clearly having an effect.” He pulled out two sheets of paper from his bag, and passed it to me. “On these parchments are a purification spell, all it needs is a magical boost and it will clear up the miasmas in this area. It's not a permanent solution, but it should be enough to help you find your way.”

I took the parchment. The things were covered in a writing I didn’t understand, along with symbols that looked straight out of a occult mystery novel. “Quick question, what’s Miasma?”

“Not the most easy thing to explain.” The harpy pulled out a flask with a black oil like substance. “It’s like the physical manifestation of extradimensional rot. A highly highly toxic substance that can give living things cancerous mutations if exposed for too long. But the stuff is full of magic, and if you can refine it, you can use it to cast powerful magic. The purification spells I gave you will break down miasma into a nontoxic form, and stop any reality warping effects it may be causing. Well it’s been nice. Gloomy, but nice.”

The harpy waved at me, and stepped through the door. With a hiss, the door closed, leaving me alone once more.

Taking another deep breath, I figured it was now or never. Focusing my magic, I poured it into one of the parchments. The thing shimmered, and exploded. A wave of warm, gentle energy washed over me and filled the hallway, making everything looked sparkling white for a second. When the light faded, I was back in front of the lobby door, but the hallway, it was now a normal hallway with the end in clear sight. Though, while it was no longer endless, now everything was dilapidated. The paint was faded and peeling, and most of the overhead lighting being dark or busted, while the ones still working were flickering dully. I was at least glad that the walls weren't bleeding black ooze anymore.

Labs D looked like a normal abandoned underground shelter, which also unfortunately included the crazed graffiti. The unsettling nature of the wall scrawlings made me miss the threats of rape and violent death as I checked my pipbuck. I had hoped to get a signal on Harp, but something was still interfering with the signal. I fell back onto my previous plan, and tracked the radio signal. Checking the radio to see if it was still the same, all I got was a mess of static, instruments, and some pony babbling incoherently, so I turned it back off.

Labs D still gave off a feeling of wrongness, but at least now I could navigate this place. Following the signal, it led me to the what was labeled as the ‘Advanced Genetics Lab’. The door and everything around it was abnormally clean considering the state of everything else. The door panel looked far more advanced than in the rest I'd seen in the stable, but it looked like it used the same genetic recognition program. Placing my hoof on it, the thing buzzed, and flashed red.

“Locked. Fan fucking tastic.” I didn't have time to look for a key, so I resorted to lock picking. Luckily the panel used sanders screws. A reliably flawed product of good old stable-tec make. In all but a few minutes I’d popped open the panels face, and was met with a mess of wires. It was an electric lock, set to stay closed as its normal state, so i couldn't brute force this.

“Minerva, connect to the door systems.” My pipleg’s magic pulled a few wires from my bag and connected itself to the the panel. “Minerva, open the door.” My leg beeped for a few seconds before the door clicked. As advanced as Stable-tec had been, Orthrus had long surpassed them.

Stepping inside, I could feel magic in the air, along with a strong smell of ozone. The lab was clearly bigger than the teleportation lab, though my view of most of it was blocked by large glass tubes that were everywhere. There was even a second floor that held even more tubes, and what looked like water covering the floor. I could only guess the water came from the tubes themselves, as it looked like most of them were broken. While some of the strange cylinders were filled with a murky gray-ish fluid, most of them were just empty and broken messes.

Passing one of the intact tubes, inside was a large worm. Its mouth had rows and rows of sharp looking teeth that sent a shiver up my spine. Another tube had what at first glance was a pony, but one of its forelegs ended in a massive claw that would be more at home on a paradise dragon. The next one looked less like a living thing, and more like a mass of twisted flesh. One of the broken tubes had the skeletal remains of what looked like an orthrus, though, it was much smaller than what normally were on the island.

Trotting further into the lab, the freak show only got worse. One tube was home to an oversized, but completely furless pony. It's muscles were practically threatening to break the tube due to how big the monster was. I could only imagine how nasty it could be in a fight, and without my lathanos rifle, I'd have to get lucky with a headshot.

Another tube held a massive wasp like bug. It was about as big as a pony, and had a spiney black carapace, red eyes, and vibrant amber colored wings. Somehow I already knew that this thing was more of a nightmare than the twittermights, and those fuckers had the ability to shoot lighting. Looking passed it, there were other such wasps in other test tubes, making my skin crawl.

The marker for the radio signal took me to another room in the lab, this one had a huge terminal, and a pony sitting in front of it. There were more tubes inside the room, all along the walls, though none of these ones were broken. Ovre the far end of the corner of the room there was a metal table that had a bloody corpse on it. Next to it, sat a decently sized pile of bodies in various states of decay.

I drew my revolvers, and slowly walked up on the pony.

“Ah, company!” The mare spoke with a gravelly voice, clueing me to that I was dealing with a ghoul. “Here for tea? Maybe a biscuit, or perhaps exploratory invasive surgery?”

“Spicy Love Fruit, I presume?” I asked, keeping my guns trained on her.

She clapped her hooves together, making more of a leathery slap than that of hooves clapping. She turned to me with a smile too wide to be normal… no, it was not a smile, she was missing her lips and cheeks, showing all of her rotten yellow teeth. Spicy was also missing her right eye. In its place was a black void much like the twitchers, but unlike those monsters, she had a small line of black ooze coming from it that if I had to guess, was that Miasma stuff.

“I'm at a disadvantage, you see. Who, exactly, might you be?” It was strange to see a pony talk without lips, but she managed it somehow.

“Vibraphone Echo,” I lowered my revolvers a little, trying seem less threatening. “and no, I’m not here for tea. My friend is somewhere down here. Have you seen anything strange happening down here?”

Spicy tilted her head. “Strange? Oh no, everything's quite normal here.” She then got up, and trotted over to me. “But you’re a strange one, aren’t you? Small wings, a diminutive horn, stripes, and cybernetics?”

“I'm a mirage pony, nothing special.” I raised my revolvers, convincing the ghoul to not come any closer than she was. “Now do you know any place that could block a pipbuck locator signal?”

“Mirage pony?” She studied me with her one goodish eye. “Ah, you’re the byproduct. So they gave you trash a name. How... misfortunate you are.”

“I can just shoot you right now.” I warned the ghoul, wiggling my revolvers.

She turned around, trotting back to the large terminal. “Yes, I know a place like what you seek.”

“Where is it?” I asked ever so much more politely. Seriously, could I catch just one break today?

“That would be Healing Herbs lab. It’s not far from here, but the way’s locked” Spicy pointed at the tube. “But if you help me with my research, I could be persuaded to open the door for you.”

I didn't like this idea, but sooner I could find Harp, the better...

“This better not take long.” Trotting over to the tube she was pointing at, inside was what looked like a half pony, half fish monster.

“Don't worry,” Laughter came from Spicy. “I just need to check your DNA and compare it to the original junk sequence. Then see if there's anything of use that can be extracted. If your kind is still around, then something useful must have developed as a result.”

“Right, just make it quick.” I told her.

A needle flew out and stabbed me in the side. It didn’t hurt much, but I was startled a bit as it sucked some blood out from me. Spicy pulled it out and placed the needle into a slot on the terminal she started to hit buttons on.

I decided to give her a few minutes, and took a look at the tubes in the room. The longer I looked, the more it started to feel like a twisted collection of trophies than science experiments. There was what looked like every different kind of equine presurved and on display in here. Each one of them looked like they were sleeping, and that at any moment they could get up, and trot around, except for the two that looked like fish. ‘Sea pony’ one was labeled, the other ‘Siren.’

If I had seen a lurker among them, I wouldn't been surprised. My eyes fell on one tube that contained a young mare with two horns that curve forward from behind its ears like two sharp spears, and seeing it made me very concerned. It was labeled a “Bicorn” and what I guessed was its name below the label ‘Bakers Dozen’.

“What’s a bicorn?” Swallowing nervously, it reminded me of what Shamrock became, just without the heavy mutations. “Is it some sort of mutant?”

She leaned back on her chair, looking at me upside down. “Oh, my bicorn. No, their quite natural, but supposedly went extinct long before the founding of Equestria” Spicy got out of her chair and trotted over to me with a giddy prance. “One specimen was actually found frozen in an old glacier, and the O.I.A. snuck enough of a sample of it for me to make clones. She's marvelous, unlike the twelve others, she is still alive and young.”

“So, about Healing Herbs lab?” I pushed.

Spicy ignored me, trotting up to the bicorn’s tube. “They’er amazing really. Ancient carnivorous ponies who have a high healing rate, and can perform the ‘stare’ naturally. I was able to make a serum from the clones that would give a pony those abilities, but that project was put on ice.”

“Wait... it was you who made those bastards!” I shouted, as my blood started to boil.

She looked back at me, and tilted her head. “What, no, wait.” She then nodded, making cracking noises from her bones. “I do remember giving my admiral a few of my projects, but then the bitch left me behind. I guess you ran into project ‘evil eye’ then?”

I snarled. “Ya, and they’er nothing but trouble.” I don't know why, but I could tell that she was grinning widely, even without lips. So I focused on her eye, seeing if I could use that evil eye on her, then blast out a kneecap. Playing nice was over for me

Something pricked my side, and I only had enough time to see a needle hit the floor before I felt a coldness quickly spread threw me. Spicy lifted up her hoof, showing her pipbuck, which was glowing, the bitch had used S.A.T.S. to magic a needle at me. I aimed and fired at Spicy, but my vision had already blurred too much to see straight, and my magic was getting too weak to properly power my pipleg. The bullets missed their mark, hitting the bicorn tube behind her.

I fell over, and the world spun, making me want to puke. But at least all the pain, besides the headache was gone, and what Spicy had put into me was already starting to go away.

“Odd, why did her head fall off?” Spicy said in confusion. I opened my eyes to see her stand over my body, chewing on her hoof. “Matters not, I can still offer the body to the great god of the void, and use the head to clone a new one.” I watched as she grabbed my body up with her magic, and and dragged it away to another room in this lab.

My eyes darted around furiously, but there was nothing I could do, I was stupidly just a head now.

*Crack*

The tube holding the bicorn began to leak, spaying fluid over the floor as the crack spread. A red light flashed on the tube, and then the glass shattered, dumping water and the bicorn out onto the floor.

I watch as the bicorn mare slowly got up, slipping over a few times. She was a black mare with a straw yellow and pale blue mane, and her tail looked more like a griffins then that of a pony.

I didn't have much in the way of options, so I had to take what I could get.

“Hay, two horns!” I shouted at the bicorn. It looked over at me, and tilted its head. “Ya you, come here.”

She hesitantly stepped towards me, looking down at me with pale blue eyes. The way she looked at me, I knew there was thinking going on, but for a test tube pony, I couldn't really hold out much hope for high intelligence.

Looking the bicorn mare in the eyes, I did my best to convey my urgency. “I need to get to my body, and beat the shit out of that ghoul that’s got us both locked up down here. Do you understand?”

She shook her head.

I cocked an eyebrow. “So you understand that you don’t understand?”

She nodded.

I wish I could face hoof. “Can you take me to the other pony, and bring my guns as well? The things that go bang bang, do you understand that?”

The bicorn paused for a moment, huffed twice, then trotted out of sight. She returned with a battle rifle, and an ammo bag. Holding the rifle upside down, she made two more huffing sounds, acting as though firing the rifle.

I sighed, seeing that this mare did know things, but not enough to be fully useful. “Can you pick me up, and take me to that other pony?” Third time's a charm.

She dropped the rifle and lifted me up. With a ginger touch, she set me down between her horns, propping me there. It was odd, but i didn’t feel like i was going to fall off her head. The bicorn picked up the rifle, putting it on her back, and then trotted towards where my body was dragged off to.

We entered a third room, it smelled of rot and was lighted entirely by candles. Spicy had placed my body in front of a large hole, and was in the process of wiping her rotten body with a cable. I was officially done with this crap, and as soon as she tells me where to find Healing Herbs lab, I was going to rip her jaw off, and toss her down that pit.

Spicy looked over at us, and furrowed what was left of her brow. “Thirteen! How did you get out, and what are you doing with that on your head?” She dropped her wip, and trotted over to us. I did my best to stay still, trying not to give myself away. “Did your tank get damaged? You poor thing, just stay here and I’ll grab you a new one.”

I waited until Spicy was out of earshot before speaking up. “Take me to my body, I should be able to do the rest.” This ‘thirteen’ mare nodded sharper than expected, nearly flinging me off her head. Upon reaching my body, I could properly see the pit it was supposed to be tossed into, and from here, I couldn’t see the bottom despite already being far underground. Shaking off the uneasy feeling, I returned my focus to my body. “Hey, get up. We’ve got too much to do for you to die on me just yet.” You know, as weird as this was, I was starting to get the terrible feeling that this was less of a dream like I’d hoped it all had been.

Which meant that ontop of being thoroughly unamused, I was both afraid of what exactly had happened to me, as well as pissed off to high Tartarus for it.

Once again, my body stirred, slowly getting up. It reached out blindly, slowly grabbing at my head and plopping it down back where it belongs. Annoyingly, my head was on backwards. The moment I regained control over my own body, I reached up and forcefully turned my head back around.

“Fuck Charon, I’m never going to get use to this.” I said as I gave a shiver from the thought I should have just broken my own neck doing that. But like before, I had more important things to do than to dwell on what shouldn’t be possible.

Looking at Thirteen, I took the rifle and ammo bag from her. The rifle itself looked quite old, but still in serviceable condition. It had several tally marks scratched deeply into it’s wooden butstock, as well as an engraving on the foregrip.

“This Machine Kills Zebras.” I read it out loud. Still, despite its age, the rifle looked like it was in excellent shape for being locked away down here for so long. “This should do nicely as a replacement.” Ugh, I still can’t believe that other mare stole my fucking gun.

Thirteen and I left the strange room behind us and swiftly returned to the lab. Two robots were hauling the damaged tube away as Spicy tapped away at the large terminal.

“What to dump, what to dump…” She muttered to herself as she cocked her head at the terminal. “I can't let my baker's dozen just stay out where time can ravaged her. Maybe letting the death worm go? Not like it can do much for my research anyway...”

Aiming the rifle proved to be more difficult without levitation assist talisman, and I didn’t know if Minerva could hold onto the rifle after firing. 303 rounds were quite strong, and Minerva was only really calibrated for something like air rifles. Giving up on the auto aim, I reared up, and held the rifle in my forelegs. It was awkward, but it’d have to do for now.

*Bang*

My ears rang in pain from the loud report, and Spicy screamed. Her back left leg had been completely severed in one shot, sending black bile all over the floor.

Placing the rifle in my rifle holster, I trotted up to the ghoul and smiled. It was odd, as it felt like my smile went from ear to ear with ease. Spicy on the other hoof showed me a look of horror in her one good eye.

“Let’s try this again.” I kneeled down close, getting face to face. “So, where's Healing Herbs lab?”

Footnote:

Quest item gained: Scroll of purification. (A strange scroll of parchment with strange writing in an ink that almost glows with magic. It is clearly not from Equestria, or likely even this world, and gives off a faint sense of calm. Use it around magicly corruption to make things more “Normal” for a short period of time.)