The factory door creaked open on protesting hinges, spilling wan light in to meet the flickering lights on the interior. The stench of mold and dust washed over us, as we stepped inside, Sentinel taking an extra moment to secure the door behind us. The lights buzzed angrily as they flickered in and out, casting long shadows across rusting equipment that was just as alien to me as any other I’d seen. I looked up and around, my eyes following along the conveyors and machines, trying to figure out where we might find a specific doodad. Unless the thing we were looking for was big and heavy, this was definitely outside of my element. A glance over at Jerry showed me that she was entirely in hers. Her eyes were bright and a smile tugged at her lips as she was taking mental stock of what would’ve been a treasure trove during one of her scavenging missions. She trotted forward and scampered up onto a machine, peering into its guts and muttering to herself. Meanwhile, Sentinel and I stood in place. He looked bored. I’m sure I looked lost.

“So…” I muttered, “Should we leave the scavenging to the one who’s good at it?”

Sentinel chuckled and trotted over to the machinery that Jerry busied herself with. Reaching up to bang a hoof on the exterior he called out, “Oi, princess. You and the big guy stay ‘ere. I’m gonna scout the area. See if I can’t find them ponies from Deepwater.”

Jerry’s foreleg reached back and waved dismissively at Sentinel, but she was too busy in her own little world to say anything back. He shrugged, drew his weapon from his back and moved deeper into the building, leaving Jerry and I alone. Alone. And free. I chewed my lip nervously. Would now be a good time to say anything?

“Jerry?” I called.

There was a moment of silence in the guts of the machine, followed by a muffled, “Yeah?”

I looked down, scuffing my hoof against the dusty floor. Just tell her. Tell her and at least that weight will be off your chest. “Jerry… I uhh, just wanted to say… That is… what do you think of Deepwater?” I asked while internally I was bashing myself in the head with a rock.

Jerry pried herself from the guts of the machine, a smear of grease across her left cheek. “Deepwater?” she repeated and then shrugged. “I don’t know… it’s… different.” she said, looking down at me. “Everything is so… different…”

“Right?” I chimed in, smiling up at her. “Its… overwhelming… having choices we can make. Things we can act on. Things we can… hope for.”

Jerry’s ears twitched as she looked at me. And for a moment, it felt like she was thinking the same thing. She smiled at me, “Free, I-”

“Hey!” Sentinel’s voice rang out from wherever he’d gotten to. Jerry’s mouth snapped shut and she craned her head around, her sentence forgotten. I began to scream internally.

“Sentinel?” Jerry called, as she climbed out of the shift and hopped down to the floor. “C’mon Free, let’s see what he found,” she said as she trotted off. I stared after her for a second, a strangled scream dying in my throat as I trudged after her. Patience… good things come to those who wait…

Sentinel stood near an open door, leading into some kind of office adjacent to the workspace. “Did you see somepony?” I asked.

Sentinel shook his head. “Nah, but they must’ve been this way,” he said, gesturing down at the ground. The dust on the floor had been disturbed, so somepony had been here recently. Sentinel stepped through first, pushing the door open as wide as it would go and scanning the interior with his rifle. It looked… empty. Well, empty is the wrong word. Abandoned. The desks and filing cabinets were rifled through and their contents spilled across the floor. Age brittle paper crunched underhoof as I stepped around the desk and peered into the open drawers.

“They’re looking for a part right? Pretty sure it wouldn’t be in a desk,” I muttered.

“It's scavenging, Free,” Jerry said as she trotted past and pulled open a closed drawer that somepony must’ve missed. “If I learned anything while going out on those scavenging runs, its that pre-war ponies left all sorts of weird things in all sorts of weird places.” She reached a hoof into the drawer and scraped out a couple of bullets that looked like they’d fit her pistol and tucked them into her pack with a satisfied smile.

“Wait… why were there bullets in there?” I asked, pointing a hoof at the drawer. Both Sentinel and Jerry shrugged and continue on, occasionally stopping to look through something that the previous passer-throughs had missed. I took one last look at the drawer and then followed behind them. “So… what kind of place was this?” I asked Sentinel.

He glanced at me and then levitated some papers of the desk nearest to him to peer at them. “Uhhh… looks like it was a… prototype self-contained all-in-one textile mill. They made uniforms for the military.”

“All-in-one?” Jerry asked.

“That’s what it says?” Sentinel said, letting that papers fall back to the desk.

“An operation like this would need water. Water needs plumbing,” I said to him.

He nodded, looking just a little impressed with the pair of us. “I mean… that makes sense,” he said nodding carefully.

“So… we’d need pipes to bring in the water.” I glanced up towards the ceiling. An orderly row of several pipes ran across the ceiling before disappearing down a stairwell.

“Well look at Mr. Wastelander here,” Jerry said with approval. “It’s like you’ve been a scavenger all your life.”

I smiled but didn’t say anything. Instead, I began down the stairs. It got cooler as we descended. More pipes and cables emerged from the ceiling, snaking around ancient flickering lights - all heading deeper and deeper. Soon, the walls and floors were a twisted maze of pipes and cables that didn’t appear to make any sense.

“Oh, this looks… inviting...” Jerry muttered.

“This was a Stable-Tec operation,” Sentinel said quietly, the faint glow of his magic casting a blue haze over everything as he kept his weapon at the ready.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Stable-Tec built modular structures. If you can use it in one, you can use it in all of ’em. More cost effective that way. Easier to repair. When you’ve been in one Stable, you’ve been in them all,” Sentinel said, nudging me aside as he took the lead. “All the pipes n’ stuff are different though.”

“You’ve been in a stable too?” I asked in hushed tones. Something about this place was setting me on edge. Images of the dead we’d seen in Stable 121 filtered through my brain one by one.

“Oh yeah,” he said as the stairwell leveled out into a straight corridor. “Once or twice. I hear there’re loads of them all over Equestria. Some wastelanders hunt them like treasure. Many don’t come back.”

“What do you think we’ll find in here?” Jerry asked.

Sentinel shrugged. “Dunno. I think if there was a stable down here, somepony would’ve found it by now. We’re not the first ponies down here. Deepwater knows about this place, they’ve been here more’n once to scavenge. They’d have found it before now.” Sentinel stopped suddenly, the barrel of his rifle dipping slightly. His horn flared brighter, filling the tunnel with blue light. “Unless they hid it behind a fake wall…” he muttered.

Up ahead a section of wall had been pushed outward on a hidden hinge. Spindly tangles of vines snaked out of an opening just wide enough for a pony to get through. More vines draped across the top of the hidden door and across the concrete floor. Jerry hung back a step, shaking her head. “I don’t like it… there wasn’t anything good about the last stable…” she muttered.

“Yeah… but we’re looking for some missing scavengers. What scavenger wouldn’t go into a stable?” I asked. Jerry opened her mouth, but no counter argument came.

“Goddesses dammit…” she muttered. She looked back over her shoulder and then sighed. “Fine, let’s go…”

Sentinel was already stepping through the gap, his shoulder armor scraping the edges as he squeezed through. Jerry followed immediately after, slipping through without much effort. When it came to my turn, I stepped up to the opening and scowled. “I’m too big…” I muttered.

Jerry’s face appeared in the gap as she sized up the problem. “Yeah, you’re not fitting through that,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Hang on.” She disappeared from view again and I could hear her talking with Sentinel somewhere out of sight. After a moment she re-appeared. “Sentinel says the door mechanism is jammed. If you want in we’re gonna have to force it open.”

I looked at the opening, taking a moment to examine it. As far as I could tell, it was like a regular door, only bigger and made to blend in. “Okay, hang on.” I reared back onto my hind legs and squeezed into the gap as much as I could. Bracing my forelegs against the wall, I pushed as hard as I could. At first, there was nothing, and then the door groaned loudly and opened just a bit wider. I pushed harder, gritting my teeth as I put as much strength into it as I could. The door scraped across the ground, grating across the concrete flooring. The vines that had grown over the top of the door grew taut and then snapped one by one, a thick sticky goop leaking from the ends and dripping foul-smelling sludge on top of me.

Once the opening was wide enough for me to fit through, I dropped to the floor and joined Jerry and Sentinel. Just inside the door was a small and unusually bare room, mostly empty save for a few crates and containers and a console next to a large cog-shaped door. It looked like a large plug that would fit snugly into the slot in the wall but something had pulled or pushed it out of place and moved it partly to the side. Emblazoned on the front of it were the numbers ‘116’ Thin snaking tendrils of green vines grew out through the opening, and made their way across walls and floor, a few daring ones even grew across the ceiling. Sentinel and Jerry had busied themselves with the crates as I peered into the new opening.

“What’s with all the plants?” I asked.

“Haven’t the faintest,” Sentinel said as he pushed the container he’d been going through aside and moved over to me. He brushed a hoof against the vines on the floor and then pressed down on them experimentally. Nothing happened. “It’s definitely weird. Be careful.”

“Well, shit,” Jerry muttered as she tipped the box she’d been going through onto the floor. “Anything of value’s already been pulled out of these.” She turned and froze, looking at Sentinel and I standing in the entrance to the Stable. “Uhhh, we’re not going in there, right?”

I glanced back through the door and then back at Jerry. “I thought we went through this already. Right now it’s our best guess on where the scavengers are.”

“Oh no,” Jerry said with a shake of her head. She backed up, stopping only when she bumped into the empty containers she’d gone through. “Are you kidding me? After the last one we went into?”

“We’re still looking for-” I started but Jerry raised her hooves.

“No! Not doing it!” She crossed her forelegs and looked away, muttering under her breath.

“It's fine. I’ll go. Sentinel, you stay here and keep Jerry safe,” I said as I stepped through the opening.

Sentinel shrugged and nodded. “Sure thing.”

“W-what?” Jerry called after me. “But-”

“It’s fine. I’ll shout if I need help,” I said and continued into the Stable.

The stable was different than the last in that it didn’t have the automated intake area. Instead, the entrance was little more than a security room and a wide hallway leading to another set of stairs containing only a scant few benches and the odd desk. The odd part was all of it was covered by thick, green plants. Large, fanned leaves sprouted from a squat brown stump that had grown out of the corner. A thin layer of moss-covered most surfaces and the air was warm and wet and reeked of something almost sickly sweet. I brushed my hoof across my forehead, wincing when I smacked myself with the edge of the pipbuck. Gotta remember: other hoof now.

This place was the most alien I had ever seen. The Badlands had plants, sure, but nothing so… alive. Mostly squat brown brush struggling to survive. This was like… what’d they call it… a juggle? The security room was a bust. Peeking through the window, I saw the ceiling inside had collapsed against the door making it inaccessible. That only left one direction to go. I brushed my hoof across the reaching fronds of one of the plants as I made my way to the stairwell and started down.

“Hello?” I called loudly when I’d reached the next landing. “Anypony here?” No response. “I’m not here to hurt you,” I called as I started down the corridor, stepping over vines and pushing aside the thick leaves that occasionally obscured the path. “I was sent by… uhh… well, I don’t know his name. Somepony that guards the entrance to Deepwater.” I stopped at a junction and waited, listening. Nothing. I was basically talking to myself and to the plants. I wiped my brow again, this time with the safe hoof, and started down the left corridor.

It was about the third, overgrown and musty room before I began to regret leaving Jerry and Sentinel behind. Most of the doors in this place were open or forced slightly so by the rampant plant life which had lost its wonder the second time I’d been forced to rip through a blockage of vines and gotten covered in more of the putrid sap. The corridor ended in a moss-coated wall and with a sigh, I turned to head back the way I’d come.

Foul yellow teeth snapped shut just an inch from my face. “Fuck!” I screamed as I stumbled back a step. My hooves scrapped across the mossy floor and I fell backwards, landing awkwardly on my back. Liberator fell out of its hooks and landed on the floor with a dull thud. I looked up at my attacker and felt my brain come to a shuddering halt as it tried to process what it was I was looking at. It looked like a pony in shape only. Damp moss grew where skin should be and writhing vines sprouted from its back. It stood still for a moment, the only movement from it was the twitching of its vines before it’s mouth opened and it lunged once more. My brain startled into life once more by fight or flight, I brought up my hind legs and kicked as hard as I could. The plant thing lifted off its feet and smacked wetly against the ceiling before landing in a heap on the floor. It began to thrash about wildly as I got to my hooves. It twisted in the middle, far more than a spine should allow and scraped at the floor, trying to get to me.

“Fuck you!” I growled as I twisted and grabbed Liberator from the floor with my forelegs. I swung it in an overhead arc and brought the heavy concrete end down. The thing let out a shrill shriek as Liberator drove it back into the floor, but still it gnashed its teeth at me. I pulled the club free and brought it down again, harder still. The mossy skin split open, and that same thick green sludge spurted from the wounds. Its shriek became a wet gurgle and with one final swing, the creature was silent, still, and nearly split in two. I lowered Liberator to the floor, dropped back onto all fours, and then onto my rear as I took slow, deep breaths.

“Okay, Jerry… you were right… again…” I muttered. I took a minute to calm down and catch my breath and then got to my hooves. I retrieved Liberator and set it back into its hooks before stepping around the expanding pool of slime leaking from the ruined plant creature. I briefly thought of running back to the others but shook the idea off. In the time it took me to get them, the scavengers we were looking for could die. How many more of these things could there be?

Oh, that many.

I’d found the atrium. Vibrant purple flowers grew from the coiling vines that had wrapped themselves around the guardrails and up each of the supports. Under different circumstances, this would probably be a beautiful sight. But the shuddering, half-plant half-pony creatures that paced the bottom floor ruined the moment.

“Yeah, definitely not liking Stables,” I muttered as I stepped as close to the railing as I dared and peered over the edge. The plant creatures staggered awkwardly around the atrium floor, at least thirty of them. As I watched, one laid down in a patch of moss against the wall. The vines on its back spread out and a couple unfurled into fanned leaves. In moments the creature was completely hidden. Great, there was no telling how many I’d already passed. “You know who would be great here?” I found myself muttering. “Fricassee…” I nodded as I carefully and quietly made my way around the overlook toward the nearest door. I reached up and tapped my hoof against the door panel. It buzzed angrily and refused to open. I pressed it again, this time hearing something inside -slightly muffled voices and something being pushed against the door.

“I think one of them is at the door!” somepony said. A mare by the sound of it.

“Relax, they can’t open it,” said another. A stallion if I had to guess.

“H-hey? Are you the scavengers from Deepwater?” I called through the door.

The tiny speaker in the door control crackled. “H-hello? Hello? What are you doing here? How’d you make it past those… things?” Definitely a mare.

“Uhh, I walked,” I said, hoping they could hear me without having to press anything. “Only one has attacked me so far.”

“Did it bite you?” she asked.

“No, it tried its best though.”

“Good, because it fuckin’ hurts!” the stallion interrupted. “Listen closely, I need you to do something for us. This office sealed when we took shelter inside. It won’t open until the fungal outbreak has been dealt with.”

“Uhh… I don’t think I can fight all these things,” I muttered. “I’m strong, but not invincible.”

“You don’t have to! According to the terminal we found in here, there’s a containment failsafe. Look up. Do you see the sprinkler?” I glanced up. There was a dingy sprinkler head jutting from the ceiling. “The fire suppression system can also spray a powerful antifungal agent. We just need to activate it and all the creatures should begin to die.”

It’s all coming full circle. I knew Fricassee would’ve been helpful here. “So,” I said, “I just need to start a fire.”

“No. A regular fire won’t mix in the antifungals. You need to- dammit, I’m bleeding again… to get to one of the research labs and trigger it from there.”

“Let me guess…” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “The labs are downstairs… with all those things…” The pensive silence from the speaker answered my question. I sighed. “Alright. What’s the fastest way down there?”

“Y-you’re gonna help us?” the mare said.

“Well… yeah, that’s the whole reason I’m here,” I said. Once again, words appeared in my vision, ‘Fungus Among Us’. I glanced down at my pipbuck. “Really?” I muttered at it.

“Th-thank you. Thank you so much. We’ve been stuck in here for days! We’ll wait here for you. Stay safe!”

I moved to the railing and glanced down again. “Yeah… safe…”

It took me a few minutes to find a stairwell that wasn’t choked with plants. It had taken me several more to get to the bottom level. There I stood, on the last step, looking at the gauntlet I found myself running. Down here the air was practically dripping it was so humid. Also, the moss didn’t cover the walls so much as it formed small rolling hills down the entire length of the corridor. I eyed each patch of leaves like I was a lunatic. Any of it could be a creature in waiting. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t have to head through the atrium on this level. But then, when was I ever that lucky?

I took my first tentative step. Followed by my second. I carefully made my way down the corridor, ducking under or around the leaves where I could. It felt like a dozen eyes were on me, but nothing stirred. Nothing rushed at me. Yet, that nagging voice at the back of my mind said, “Nothing is attacking you... yet.”

Suddenly, moss peeled away from the wall as one of the creatures made itself known. It opened its jaws wide, ropey drool dripping from them as it charged. There wasn’t enough space to draw Liberator, and not for the first time I began to wish I had that oh-so-useful unicorn horn. I raised a hoof in front of my face as the yellow teeth closed around either side of the armored plate there. My hooves scraped across the ground and I found myself pinned, my back against the wall as its teeth scraped the edges of my leg armor. I raised my free foreleg and brought it down as hard as I could on the things skull. There was a dull thunk and the creature’s grip loosened for a second. Before I could ready another blow, the vines along the creature’s back coiled around my leg, pulling it aside.

“That’s fucking cheating!” I grunted as I pushed back against the creature. I aimed to push it against the opposite wall, but when its back connected with the moss, we tumbled through and landed in a room, the entrance of which had grown over. The creature, now beneath me, writhed and chewed at my armor. I planted my hind legs on its midsection and twisted, pulling at my ensnared foreleg. The vines strained and snapped, spilling more foul sap from the wounds. It shrieked around my armor plate jammed between its teeth. “I’m gonna need that back!” I growled as I placed my free hoof on its forehead and twisted the opposite direction, ripping my bitten limb free along with several broken teeth. Its jaws snapped wildly, flinging spittle and sap at me as it struggled to free itself. “Sorry about this!” I said as I reared back and brought both hooves down on its skull. It burst apart, coating my hooves in the thick sludge that passed for this thing’s innards and the body went still.

For a moment.

It suddenly began to thrash about wildly. Surprised, I jumped aside and braced myself for the thing to get up and attack again. Instead, its body began to distort, the limbs cracking and bending at odd angles. Its torso began to swell, bloating to two- no, three times its original size. Then, with a near-deafening boom, it burst. I was thrown through a mold covered table and smacked against the far wall by the force of the blast. My ears were ringing, again, and I found myself shaking my head as I tried to focus. A thick yellowish fog hung in the air, and I coughed and gagged with each breath. I staggered towards the open door and back into the corridor, struggling to take a breath.

“Get down!”

I hit the floor just as somepony opened fire. I heard the heavy ratatatat of a machine gun, immediately followed by the pained shrieks of the plant creatures. Something tugged at the back of my neck, and I was pulled closer to the sound of the gunfire.

“You’re a right ‘eavy git! Ya know that?” came a familiar drawl.

“S-sentinel?” I croaked.

“Who else? On your ‘ooves, these bastards aren’t stopping. We need to leave,” he said between bursts of machine gun fire.

“W-wait. We need to get to one of the labs!” I coughed, shaking off his magical hold on my armor.

“Are you daft?” He screamed.

I shook my head and pointed at the plant ponies. “It’s some kind of fungus. The labs have a built-in failsafe that should kill them!”

“Should? Not liking that uncertainty right now,” he said as the magazine ejected from his rifle. Another was slammed home in an instant and the firing resumed. “I ‘aven’t got unlimited ammo! You sure about this?”

“I am if we want to get those scavengers out of here!” I said as I got to my hooves. My throat burned and my eyes were watering. The whole corridor stank of the sap-blood spilling from the creatures as sentinel gunned them down. “Get behind me!” I said as I lowered my head. I scraped my hoof across the floor once and then started running. I built as much speed as I could, galloping right at the writhing, crawling creatures. I threw my shoulder into the first, lifting it off its hooves and used it as a battering ram as it scratched and scraped at my armor feebly. Sentinel was hot on my heels, putting a short burst into each of the creatures I knocked out of my way as he passed them.

“Where’s the bloody lab?” he shouted after me.

“Beats me! Look for something science-y,” I shrugged off my passenger and darted down a new corridor.

“What did I say ‘bout goin’ off ‘alf cocked?” His question was punctuated with another burst from his gun and the shriek of a plant creature.

“You can bitch at me if we survive!” I spied a partially open and slightly moss covered door and slipped through the gap. “Sweet Celestia, thank you,” I said as I could make out a bunch of technical looking equipment not unlike things I’d seen in Doc’s office. Sentinel was a second behind me. He practically dove through the gap and whipped around, putting a staccato burst through the door as one of the creatures got a little too close for comfort.

“Best find it quick! I’m starting to run dry ‘ere!” he shouted over the chaos. I whipped my head back and forth. If I were going to place an emergency button, where would I put it?

Here...

I spun in place and spotted a bright red button secured in a glass box. I dashed for the button and smashed my hoof right through the glass and into the button.

Nothing happened.

“Oh come the fuck on!”

“What now?” Sentinel shouted.

“I think it’s broken.”

“Then fix the bloody thing before we’re killed!”

Fix it? How did he expect me to fix it? I turned and bucked with all my strength. The button depressed and then deformed before its small control box flattened against the wall. Red emergency lighting flashed into life, accompanied by the blare of an alarm.

“Containment breach. Containment breach.” There was a faint rumbling noise, followed by the sprinklers coming to life. A blue-tinted liquid sprayed across the floors and walls. When it came into contact with the moss, it turned brown and sloughed off the wall. The creatures weren’t so lucky. They stumbled around, shrieking as their mossy skin blistered and peeled away. Their green sludge blood turned black and foamy as it spilled from open wounds. One by one, they fell, dissolving before my eyes. I was suddenly tingly all over and for a brief, terrifying moment, I worried that it might happen to me. I raised a leg and watched as the blue liquid harmlessly matted itself to my fur. The sap that I’d gotten all over myself fizzled and burned away, but thankfully it ended there.

“Nicely done,” Sentinel said as he stepped over to one of the dissolving corpses and nudged it with the barrel of his rifle. As I caught my breath the text appeared again, only this time it read; Fungus Among Us: COMPLETED. I nodded when something finally occurred to me. My heart thundered in my chest and I glanced into the hallway and then at Sentinel.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Jerry?” I asked.

“Relax. She’s topside. Poor girl was worried ‘bout ya but really didn’t want to come down ‘ere. Begged me to come watch your back. She cares for ya, mate,” he said as he stepped over a puddle of goop that was once a living, albeit horrible monster, and started back to the stairs.

“So… she’s safe?” I took a slow, deep breath, willing my head and heart to calm down.

“As houses.” Sentinel rolled his eyes. “Don’t forget, she’s got armor and a gun. She’ll be fine.” I nodded, trying to convince myself. “Hey,” Sentinel said, pulling my focus back to the here and now, “you said you found the scavengers?”

“Oh, yeah. Let’s get them and get the hell out of here,” I said, quite eager to be done with this place.

By the time we got back to the top of the atrium, the sprinklers had shut off. Most of the growth had withered and died. Shriveled brown stumps and pools of sludge were all that stood in our way. I returned to the door and pressed the button. The door hissed open, retracting into the walls. A desk stood in the opening, cluttered with various things to try and barricade it. Clearly, these guys hadn’t thought this through very well.

“Hello? You still-” I started, but a leg jabbed out of the makeshift barricade at me. I stumbled back a step.

“Hurry! Hurry! You have to help him!” the mare shouted anxiously. The desk scraped away from the door and I saw a tired and very battered purple mare, looking to us with wide, terror-filled eyes. “Please, something’s wrong with Shadow Flash.”

Sentinel stepped past me and into the room. It was conspicuously free of the dying mold and looked relatively clean, if a little damp from the sprinklers. Shadow Flash was curled into a ball on the floor, his eyes shut tight and watering.

“What happened?” the ghoul asked as he knelt down next to the pony.

“I-I don’t know. He was fine until the sprinklers went off. Then he started screaming.”

Sentinel turned to look at her. “Was he injured?”

“We both were,” the mare said, holding out her forelegs to reveal several scratches and cuts that run up them before hitting her barding. “Those things scratched me all to hell and bit Shadow on the shoulder before we got in here.”

Sentinel checked the colt’s shoulder, then rolled him over and checked the other. The wound was red, swollen and weeping a black sludge. “Ah shit, I think the fungus infected him.” Sentinel wiped his hoof in a puddle of the blue fluid on the floor and then pressed it into the wound. The colt’s eyes shot open and he screamed as the wound began to foam.

“Stop! Stop! You’re killing him!” the mare shouted, grabbing at Sentinel’s uniform and trying to pull him away.

“Kid, keep her off me!” Sentinel growled as he dipped his hoof into the fungicide and pressed it into the wound again. I hooked a hoof around the mare and backed up a step, lifting her from the floor.

“Let me go! He’s killing shadow!” she screamed as she struggled against me.

“I think your friend is sick,” I said. “Sentinel’s trying to help.”

“Help? How is this helping?” she screamed. “This is torture!” As if to prove her point, Shadow screamed again, trying weakly to pull away from Sentinel.

“Hey! HEY!”Sentinel barked, shaking the colt. “LOOK AT ME!” Shadow’s eyes opened and he looked up at the ghoul in panic. “Them things that bit ya? They was filthy. The wound’s infected. I need to purge that shit from you or you WILL die. Do you understand?” Shadow nodded emphatically. “Good,” Sentinel said as he magically pulled a scrap of rolled leather from his saddlebag. “Bite down on this, son. It’s going to get really shitty now.” Shadow’s eyes widened and he hurriedly bit down on the leather. Sentinel’s horn flashed and the poison on the floor began to run together and drip into the air, collecting itself in a growing sphere of blue liquid just above the floor. The sphere floated over to the colt’s shoulder and then engulfed it entirely. Shadow screamed through the leather, as Sentinel telekinetically pushed the fluid into the wound. I could hear the fizzling sound as the fungicide did its work and after a minute Shadow relaxed, his breathing slowed and the wound looked decidedly less oozey. The mare relaxed as well, looking worriedly to her companion but no longer struggling.

“Shadow?” she called softly.

“He’s passed out, love,” Sentinel said as he got to his hooves. He turned to face us and looked the mare over quickly. “You ‘urt anywhere?”

“No,” she said absently, “Will Shadow be okay?”

“No idea. But he ain’t dead now. So that’s a start.” Sentinel retrieved his weapon and took a quick look around the room. His magic engulfed a small object on one of the desks and deposited it into his saddlebag. “Can you walk on your own, Miss…”

“Hazelblossom…” she said softly. “Yes, I can walk.”

“Good, cuz I doubt he can carry two of you.”

My ears pricked up. “He what- OOF!” I grunted as Shadow was deposited across my back suddenly as Sentinel’s levitation magic cut out. “Little warning next time?”

“C’mon. Let’s get back to the bird,” Sentinel said as he walked out of the room, completely ignoring me. Hazelblossom smiled at me and the pair of us trotted out.

I smiled and shook my head when something dawned on me. It reeked. “What is that smell?” I asked, waving a hoof in front of my face.

“I-I said we were in there for days!” the mare shouted, her face turning red as she trotted faster.

I felt better once we were out on the factory floor again, and even stopped glancing over my shoulder. Together, Sentinel and I managed to hook my pipbuck up to the stable door controls and seal it. Sentinel muttered something about using it as leverage at Deepwater, whatever that meant. Hazel kept to herself, mostly by constantly checking on her companion to see if he was still doing well.

“Jerry?” I called loudly. “We’re back. And mostly alive.”

“Oh good! I found the flange! I also spent all that time digging around and might’ve gotten a bit carried away,” she said as she trotted around a corner. The smear of grease she’d gotten earlier, was now joined by several more. “If you’re here though maybe you can… carry… oh…” she said, her voice trailing off when she saw the stallion draped across my back. “I’ll just… get a little more choosey on the salvage.” She offered a lopsided grin and then disappeared around the corner again. I heard a clatter and a loud thump as she began to sort through her little horde of treasure. I glanced at Sentinel who nodded and trotted after her.

“C’mon then la- Holy shit! ‘Ow in the world was you thinkin anypony could carry all that?!”

It took about an hour to weed out the best salvage from the pile that Jerry had built up, all of which I pulled behind me on a make-shift sled as we walked back to Deepwater.

“Are you sure he isn’t too heavy?” Hazel asked for roughly the hundredth time. I smiled and nodded. “Even though you’re dragging all that junk behind you?” I nodded again. She made a face and then moved a couple of steps closer to Jerry. “Is he… like… normal?” she asked in semi-hushed tones.

“Who? Free?” Jerry said with a smirk. “Oh, he’s anything BUT normal. I’ve seen him pull or lift things that would crush you or me.” She stifled a laugh. “There’s this mare where we’re from. Little, pent-up thing named Lash. She was always trying to find something Free couldn’t move.” Jerry’s nose scrunched up, and she struggled to keep her laughing in check. “This- this one time, she got a two pony cart. And she has the others load it full of ore. And when I say load, I mean packed to the brim. Then she drags Free over to it and just says ‘Move it.’ No other directions. Just ‘Move it.’” Jerry had stopped walking now and raised her hooves to pantomime out her story. “So Free, slips into the harness, digs in his hooves and gives it all he’s got. I mean, he’s practically ripping up the ground to get this thing moving.” Free smiled as she spoke, not for any particularly fond memory, but because of how cheerful Jerry seemed to be of it. “And Lash, she has this super smug look on her face, like she’d finally won. But that cart creaks and rolls forward ever so slightly. And that smug look just melted right off that bitch’s stupid face.” Jerry said. “And then, and then the best part. The cart squeals real loud, and the bottom just rips right out of it.” Jerry collapsed in a fit of laughter that I knew was coming. “Stupid bitch overloaded the cart and he still moved it,” she croaked through the laughter. Hazel tittered and Sentinel even coughed to hide a chuckle. “Whips yelled at her soooo loud, you could hear it across The Dig!”

“That’s her fondest memory,” I said to Hazel as Jerry struggled to regain composure.

“We don’t have many, do we?” Jerry replied as she got to her hooves. “Gotta cherish the ones we have.” She trotted over and gave me a nudge before continuing down the road.

“The lady has a point,” Hazel said as she gave Shadow a quick peck on the head and then trotted after Jerry. I smiled after them.

“Your bird’s the cheerful sort, I see why ya’ve got a thing fer ‘er,” Sentinel said as he stepped up beside me, a cigarette in his mouth.

“Yeah… wait- what?” I said, caught off guard. Sentinel smirked as he lit the cigarette, wisps of smoke escaping from his ruined cheek with each puff. He chuckled, patted me on the back and then followed after the mares. I stared after him, feeling my cheeks burn. “H-hey! Wait, you… you won’t say anything will you?” I asked, trying to catch up to him.

Footnote: Level Up!
New Perk: Brick Sh!thouse: Rank 2 -- You are the weapon. While wearing heavy armor you do more damage in hoof-to-hoof combat.

New Perk: Mutant Masher -- Something down there changed you. Gained minor increased damage against mutated creatures.

Author's Notes:

As this chapter is currently unedited, I hope you will point out any spelling or grammar errors that you see.

7/9/19: Got the green light from my editor. Chapter 9 is now tagged complete. But still let me know if you spot anything out of place!