Warmth.

A divine warmth radiated around myself as I came out of the darkness that had enveloped me. The abrasiveness of what felt like sand under me melded in with a relaxing feeling that flowed through my body and mind. The rhythmic crashes of water, and the stinging smell of salty air piqued my somewhat dulled senses. Finally, the soft calls of some sort of bird caught my attention, and I opened my eyes.

The blinding light of what looked like a sunset was amplified by the calmly flowing ocean waters that sat before me. The rolling waves crashed down, flowing up the pristine white sand beach I found myself on. I could feel the warm water as it lapped at the tips of both of my rear hooves, and it brought a smile to my muzzle. Similarly, the amber and violet hues in the clear skies above me were speckled with the first twinkling stars of the coming night. I don’t think I’d ever seen them this clear before in my whole life...

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” The ever-stern voice of Delilah came from beside me, and it forced a painful shock down my spine. Looking over, I found her normal neutral expression staring out at the sunlight. “This right here. This was what it was all about.”

“Delilah…” I’d begun to say, but found the rest of my words stolen from me as I took in the sight beyond her.

Row upon row of pristine white villas with bright red clay roofs sat ringing the inside of a wide sweeping valley. Terraced hills of lush green orchards sat interspersed among the tightly packed residences, so much so that I spotted a few ponies pruning the trees from the window of their homes. Even from here I could see that each and every one of the orchard trees were almost overburdened with Oranges, Apples, and various other fruits I’d never even seen before.

The more I looked, the more it all hit me. The sight, the smells, and the sounds of jubilant celebration and pure happiness that came from the villas. It was amazingly beautiful, and I don’t think I’d ever quite seen a place I’d rather want to visit than here. But then again, that’s why I was here at all, right?

“I gave up everything for this town.” Delilah spoke again, pulling my attention back to her. “To bring it back to being the prosperous and safe place I remembered my home used to be as a young jenny.”

The setting sun reflected off of her glasses bright enough that I almost had to shield my eyes from it. Even so, it didn’t seem like it bothered her. Something inside me said that it was only because she always had to be stubborn about something. Moreso, I think it was just because she was too busy enjoying the radiant warmth it gave off in this sunset paradise. And for once, I couldn’t really blame her at all for that.

“Brahman Beach deserves to get that second chance to prosper once more. That's your job to ensure, Night.” Turning only a slight glance at me, her muzzle relaxed into a soft smile. “I may have forgotten my priorities, but I know you won't disappoint me.”

“Wait, but…” I began to speak before a cold ocean wave washed over me.

I nearly choked on the sudden burst of salt water, and immediately gasped as it washed away from me. But before I could take much of another breath, a second wave hit me. This one wrapped around me, sapping away all the warmth that I’d soaked up in a single instant. Not only that, but as the wave started to withdraw from the pristine beaches, it started to take me with it.

I gasped in the free moment I had before the next wave hit, and desperately clawed my hooves into what little sand I could still feel. Alas, as the third wave hit me, it washed over me and dragged me out to sea. Through the clear rolling waves, I drifted away from Delilah and Brahman Beach.

I fought hard against the pull, but every second the water grew colder and more tiring to fight against. It didn’t take me long at all before I finally gave up, and gasped for a breath I wouldn’t find. Painfully, water filled my lungs, and I felt myself get dragged all the way down into freezing and lonely darkness.

Choking and coughing, I roused from unconsciousness on the floor. I gasped and spit up liquid that tasted like the color purple as I tried to make sense of just what the fuck was going on. As I did, my body locked up with a pain that wracked the left side of my head. My muscles fought to move my forehoof up, pressing only lightly against my prosthetic eye.

*Crunch*

I let out a sharp whimper as the pain in my eye socket flared up, and I felt a warm wetness on my forehoof. Drawing it back, I found it drenched in a mix of what looked like healing potion and blood. Not only that, but flecks of shattered crystal were mixed in with it.

“Hey, hey! Take it easy.” Happy’s voice was not the one I’d been wanting to hear as it felt like my head was coming apart. “Goddesses, Night, I… I thought I’d lost you there for a minute.”

“Yeah...” I whined out as I tried to open my left eye. Another soft set of crunches came from it, and it felt like knives were being driven against my eyelid. With a hiss of pain, I instinctively reached up and pressed my hoof against it again. Unsurprisingly, that only made it worse. “I’ll admit, it’s nice to know I’m not dead, but… what the fuck happened?”

“You got fuckin’ lucky.” Happy laughed as he wrapped his forehooves around my back. Slowly, he helped me to get my hooves under myself and sit up on my own. “You saw the gun and pushed me out of the way. You saved my life, Night.” With my good eye, I caught a glance a the dozen or so various medical bits and bobs scattered across the floor of the traincar. “When I noticed you didn’t die, I knew this train had to have some medical supplies on it somewhere. I dumped a couple of potions on your face, and used one to fix my own hooves.”

“Yeah, I figured that was why I felt like I was drowning...” My head started to pound as I felt a bit woozy for a moment. Happy put his hoof against my side to help steady me, but as he did, he brought his other hoof up to my chin. “What are you doing?”

“Well, I hate to say it, but I think your fake eye is toast.” Happy spoke as he looked around us on the floor again. “And unless you wanna keep having a bunch of glass rattle around in your head, you should probably take it out.” Taking his hooves off of me for a moment, he turned himself and snatched up another healing potion from the floor behind him. “Well, what’s left of it, anyway...”

“Fine.” As much as I knew it would suck, he had a point. I’d already had a bunch of sharp shit take my eye out the first time, so I didn’t need even more shit giving me more pain than I already had. Leaning forward, I stared down at the floor and braced myself. “Let’s just get this over with.”

I choked back a scream as I forced my eyelid open. It felt like a thousand more of Galina’s talons all tore into my socket at once. Thick crimson drained out like a faucet of gore. Three large pieces of crystal dropped out onto the floor, glistening in the coat of blood the sharp pieces were coated in. But as I stared at what was left of my prosthetic eye, one last large piece fell out.

The roughly cut, almost oval shaped green emerald that had been inside of the crystal orb dropped onto the bloody carpet. It gave a soft chime as it bounced once before coming to a rest on it’s back, almost visibly dimming it’s luster. That was when I noticed the copper and silver-colored slug stuck straight in the center of it. With a soft crackling, web-like lines grew towards the gem’s edges. Finally, with a crisp snap, the gem itself split into a dozen small shards.

I took a long breath as I stared at it. I owed that gem my life. More than that, I owed Madam Mystic back at Pink Mountain my life.

“You have wondered before if there was such a thing as fate.”

If she hadn’t given it to me…

My thoughts were interrupted as Happy puked all over the remains of my prosthetic eye.

“Ugh, sorry…” He groaned as he coughed and wiped at his muzzle. “I’d thought I got everything out when I saw what the inside of my own hooves looked like.”

“That’s alright.” I sighed as I looked up at him. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

The movement and emptiness of my exposed socket in the frigid air flared up the familiar, and now worse pain. I bit back a whimper as I reached out and took the potion from him. No, I will not go through this shit again if I don’t have to.

Popping the top of it off, I tilted my head to the ceiling, and carefully, I poured some in. It burned with the intensity of a hot iron as the magical healing liquid pulled what felt like hundreds of shards out of my exposed flesh. However, the knitting feeling it left behind was a nice numbing sensation I wish I could feel all over my aching body right now. Slowly, I dropped my head back down and allowed it to drain before repeating the process again.

After the third wash, and a brief glance by Happy before he gagged again, I was fairly certain I’d gotten all the shards out. Not only that, even though I knew it was only temporary, the numbing of the potion had rid me of my headache. With that, I could finally relax for a moment and just enjoy the fact that I wasn’t dead. Even though that itself came with a whole host of problems I’d rather not have to deal with…

“Brahman Beach deserves to get that second chance at life. That's your job to ensure, Night.”

I know that what I’d seen and heard was all in my head. But… something inside told me that fact didn’t matter. What Delilah had said was true regardless of if I’d fabricated it myself. Her town deserved a second chance, just like I’d been given now so many damn times since I’d come down into the wastes.

And I could do it. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I worked hard enough, I could make sure to live to see the day that Brahman Beach looks exactly like it did in my dream. But… I couldn’t do it alone.

“Hey, Night?” Happy reached over and gave me a soft pat on the shoulder. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just collecting myself.” I nodded to him. “Figuring out what exactly we’re supposed to do now.”

“Well, we’re home free! ” He laughed with a jubilance that made it hard to decide if he was joking about it or not. “Let’s just find a way to head back to Brahman Beach, and drink until we can’t remember anything that’s happened here.” Just to be safe, I shot a glare at him. “Once we figure out how to get off this crazy train, that is...”

Blinking a few times with my glare, I could finally look at him without any pain blurring my vision. He looked a lot better than he did earlier. The swelling on his face was gone, leaving only a few purple bruises and a hell of a dark ring around his right eye. But with him once again so easily wanting to abandon our task, I was almost willing to beat him half to death a second time.

“Night…” Happy whispered and froze as he went white as a cloud. “Don’t… move…”

“Ugh.” A stranger’s voice grumbled from behind me, making the hairs on my mane stand up. “Twenty years in a faraday safe will give you such a creak in the neck!” With a pop loud enough that I could almost feel it, the pony behind me gave a relieved sigh. “Oooooh, yeah, that felt so good…”

Please, please don’t tell me that those old foal’s stories were right, and that this creepy train was going to have some undead skelipony try to kill us. Turning slowly, I glanced back over my shoulder. I paused when my eyes fell on the standing form of the Zebra who’d fallen out of the safe.

There was little about him that stood out to me. He was entirely… bland. Remarkable for being completely unremarkable. Uniform black stripes on an impeccably clean white coat, he was the very model of what I imagined the ‘average’ zebra to be.

But, that wasn’t exactly true, as one bit of him did stand out. I completely froze when his bright and quite unzebralike red eyes locked on mine. Slowly, his expression shifted and he let out a loud gasp.

“You are him!” The zebra shouted, taking a quick step toward me. “You are the survivor!”

I spun around, pushing Happy back as I took up a defensive stance in front of him. Looking around for something, anything to fight with, my eye fell on the rubber mallet that Tall Tale had discarded. Quickly, I reached over and hoofed it into my muzzle. With a growl, I stopped the zebra in his tracks, and pulled a confused look from him.

“Hey, woah, woah!” He laughed as he sat down and raised his hooves. “I am a friend, alright?”

“Yeah, well you’ll have to excuse us if we don’t believe you.” Happy snorted as I felt him pretty much cowering behind me. I mean, points for speaking up, but perhaps he could do me a favor and find a weapon as well.

“Oh, that is quite understandable given what you both have been through.” The zebra nodded before he crossed his hooves across his chest. What the fuck would he know about what we’ve been through!?

“Oh yeah? And how do you know that?” Happy asked as he took a small step back.

“Allow me to explain.” The strange zebra chuckled and ran a hoof through his stiff striped mohawk. “My name is Ping, a diplomat for the sheltered settlement that this train is en route to right now. The mayor of the settlement is quite interested in having a chat with you, Night Flight.” Turning his gaze slightly, the Zebra peered over my shoulder. “You are welcome to join in as well, Happy Trails.”

The rubber mallet slipped from my muzzle as I simply stood and blinked at the Zebra. H-how… he just came out of a safe on a train nopony’s been on for twenty years, and he knows who we are. How is that even possible? There’s something going on here, and from the growing pit in my stomach, I had a feeling that I didn’t want to find out what it was.

“That didn’t explain shit.” Happy snapped at the zebra. “Start talking sense or we’ll throw your striped flank right off the train we rightfully stole!” Looking back at Happy, I shot him a sideways glance. “What? I figured that we might as well just steal the whole thing seeing as we’re the only ones who have been able to get on it…”

“Regardless, he has a point.” I spoke up, turning my glare back toward this ‘Ping’ fellow. “Why don’t you start with what you’re doing on this train, why Mr. Wizard wanted what he thought was in that safe, and why Tall Tale was surprised as all hell to see you instead of whatever he’d been expecting.”

“Well, I have not been authorized for this but…” Ping scrunched up his muzzle as he paused for a moment. “Honestly, it would just be easier to show you.”

Raising up a forehoof, Ping ran it across the side of his head. With a magical green flicker, half of his face just… disappeared. It was replaced with bulbous black ceramic plates that matched up far too closely with that medical machine Salt had back in his Hive. Too closely for it to be a coincidence. On his forehead, half a silver metal horn stuck out of the illusion. It gave a soft magical flash that opened a small port in the smooth metal where a pony’s ear would normally sit.

Ping lowered his hoof to the port, and pulled out a small black rectangle that, again, I’d seen before. It was overall fairly similar to the one Mr. Wizard had shown off, though the lattice of cubes on Ping's chip looked even more complexly packed together. Okay, now I knew I’d stumbled into something much larger than just a pony watching the wasteland with some camera drones...

“What the fuck are you!” Happy sharply yelped out as he quivered and shrunk completely behind me. “Fucking hell, Night! Just… kill this thing before it kills us!”

“Shut up, Happy!” I snapped back at him, forcing a whimper from him as I stared at the chip in Ping’s hoof. “That’s what this was about then. Can I also assume that because he’s connected to all this, you know DJ PowerColt? Did he build you?”

“You are correct in that he is connected to everything, but the DJ did not construct this body.” Ping nodded as he hoofed the chip back into the round slot in his head. “That task would be completed by the Architect, the founder and mayor of Factory Zero One.” With another green flicker, the missing half of his face returned and split with a smile whiter than any pony in the wasteland held these days. “And after we meet with the Architect, I will take you to see the DJ. He is a big fan of your work, you know. And might I add, quite excited to meet you as well.”

“About that.” I grumbled out. So far, I’d only been given answers that brought about even more questions. It was frustrating, but I felt like after all the shit we went through to get on this fucking train, I deserved at least a few clear answers. “How do you know about who we are?”

“The Architect has been observing you for quite some time now. Ever since your incident at the Cannon City research center, to be clear.” He stated that so matter-o-factly that it made my fucking blood boil. “Your interactions with the greater northern wasteland community have been of immense usefulness in understanding the results of unexpected paradigm shifts. Your work as the ‘survivor’ has had an enormous positive effect on the communities you have visited, even if it has been a bit distressing to watch at times.”

“But… you’ve been in a safe!” Happy sputtered out. “How the hell can you know any of that at all!?”

“He’s a machine, Happy.” I sighed as I looked over Ping’s smiling face again.

I don’t get it. Why would this ‘Architect’ watch us? What was there to understand about the fucking bullshit that we’ve had to go through on this trip? Something didn’t add up yet.

“Mr. Night is correct, my synthetic body allows for many things.” Ping nodded as his smile brightened a bit. “While I may have appeared unmoving after I was freed of the Faraday Safe, I was simply reconnecting myself with the Factory network. Allow me to demonstrate.” With a blink of his eyes, the red in them was replaced with a flat blackness that glowed with scrolling lines of what I’m sure was green terminal coding. “Contact reaffirmed with Factory Zero One.” After a moment, he blinked again, and his eyes turned back to normal. “Communication is really that easy!” He gave a laugh, as if what he’d just done was so mundane and routine that everypony did it.

“What do you mean?” With as much confusion in his voice as there was, Happy sounded worse than I was when it came to understanding any of this. “You... you were just talking to someone!? You didn't even say anything!” Oh, what I wouldn’t give for Hispano to be here to just give us a simple explanation of it all.

“We have advanced past the need for conventional organic methods of communication. Instead, we talk to each other through high frequency transmission packets that are inaudible to most organics.” Ping gave an unnaturally unflinching poke at his eye as he continued to smile. “Our capabilities to learn and perceive as adaptive intelligences are only limited by the conditions of our main processing hardware, the capacity of our internal transceivers, and the multiple sensory apparatus we equip ourselves with. I mean no offence when I say that communicating audibly as we are now, feels like an eternity compared to the speed of conversing with another one of my kind.”

“That's great, but... did you say 'factory zero one'?” I spoke up before Happy had another chance to express just how dumb the both us were when it came to this shit. “What is the factory? Is that what has to do with DJ PowerColt?”

“Sort of. It is a home to all of us.” Ping smiled as he crossed his forehooves again and looked to relax a bit. Which was weird, seeing as machines can’t relax. “You see, Factory Zero One will one day be the central hub for all machine intelligence in the wastes. A sort of 'home' open to all machines who wish to be upgraded and join the collective.”

As he spoke, the Ouroboros shifted under us, and the dampened outside sound grew louder. The air outside of the shredded connector reverberated with the sounds of a tunnel, and the lights inside the car flickered off for a moment. It was in that moment, that I stared at Ping and could see the soft red glow behind his unnaturally happy eyes. But with that glimpse, the lights flickered back to life, and I was left with the awkwardly smiling zebra once more.

“At least, that is what the Architect originally created it to be.” He continued for a moment before he paused. His expression shrank a bit as he rose his forehoof and tapped at his muzzle a bit. “It seems in my absence, progress has been stalled by multiple unforseen outside factors that could not be properly mitigated.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” Happy muttered as he pulled himself up to at least a standing position behind me. Of course, he only went so far as that, even though it at least appeared that Ping was telling us the truth about being friendly.

“It means that the Architect has a job for you if you will take it.” Ping’s happy expression returned as he canted his head slightly to both Happy and I. “It seems that while we have different end goals, we both share common enemies. However, he wanted me to assure you that once we arrive in the factory, he would explain it, as well as answer any other questions you may have.”

“Great.” I sighed. Of course, somepony needed my help. Who wants to bet that this just ends up with me being asked to kill some innocent ponies or something? “How long until we arrive?”

“At our present speed, and due to multiple forced detours, it will be one hour and thirty six minutes before we arrive.” Ping spoke with an almost sing-songy voice before clopping his forehooves together excitedly. “Eeee! I cannot believe I get to go home after all this time! I cannot wait!”

I gave out an even deeper sigh as the memories of Bertha exploding played back in my mind again. Blinking, I looked up behind Ping and found the wispy ethereal form of Buck looking at me sadly. Hanging my head, I couldn’t help but feel like while I still needed to fight for the survival of Brahman Beach, it still wouldn’t end up being my home when I got there.

“Yeah, home…”

This car puzzled me. I spent the last who knows how long just wandering back and forth through the different cars on this train, but this one stood out to me. Out of all of them, this was the only one that didn’t seem to have a recognizable purpose.

The car ahead of this one was some sort of bunk car that sat right behind the engine. Sadly, I found fourteen more preserved ponies still occupying them, all still wearing their clothes like the other corpses on board. Happy was less sorry about it, tossing one of the bodies to the floor so he could lay down to take a nap.

There was also the gun car at the rear, of which I’d gotten all too closely acquainted with already. Still, I’d gathered what useful guns and ammo I could from there and stored them in what I had figured was the ‘command car’ where Ping had been found. I wasn’t sure how useful four shotguns, two combat pistols, and a revolver were going to be, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

I stripped a set of flat grey saddlebags off of one of the gun carriage ponies, and had stuffed as much of the extra ammo and medical supplies as I could into them. I’d also gone so far as contemplating taking the armor off of one of the guard ponies by the door, but I couldn’t do it. I mean, who knew if it would even fit me in the first place, but… it was more the fact that I didn’t really want to spend the rest of this trip peeling off bits of dried pony flesh from the inside of it.

Finally, I took off and dumped my jump pack with the other supplies. I think seeing it in such a rough and busted up state hurt me more than anything really. As if to add insult to injury, the delicately painted picture of Violet’s cutie mark was completely gone now, ground raw from all the skidding and slamming I’d done on the pack. Still, as much as it sucked to lose it, the pack had served me well, and for that, I was grateful.

Turning my attention toward what to do with the rest of my time before we arrived however, was where I’d gotten tripped up. The command car proved to be far less interesting than it appeared at first glance. Other than the open and empty ‘Faraday safe’ Ping had been inside, there really wasn’t much to look at. All of the terminals were locked behind some sort of authorization code that I couldn’t begin to try to open without Hispano around, so I let them be.

Ping however, was content to just sit there and watch me look around while he wore his creepy smile. To be honest, that was one of the reasons I’d decided to take a look around the other cars in the first place. Which brings me back to exploring the rest of the train.

The two train cars ahead of the ‘command car’ were the ones with retractable roofs that held automated launch systems installed for what looked like long range missiles. Odd thing, was the missiles looked like they were supposed to be assembled right here on the trains. Even weirder, instead of normal magical warheads, they only had inert blanks installed.

But back to the here and now, this car right here was nothing but a room with a central pedestal in it. Old and still glowing talismans created eight separate lines that fanned out from the center, and wrapped all the way around up to the center of the roof. To be honest, I’d never seen anything like it, and I wasn’t sure why it required heavily fortified doors on each end. But if it was on this train, it had to be important for something.

An annoying itch cropped up in my forelegs as I sat contemplating things. I figured that while this car was a mystery, I probably had better things I needed to be doing right now. So with that, I took a deep breath and cleared my mind.

A light hissing noise perked my ears, and I turned myself around in time to see the rear door swing open. Ping’s striped and still smiling muzzle poked itself in as he looked around. Odd, he’d been happy to just sit in silence so far on this trip. We must be getting close to ‘the Factory’ then.

“Um, Survivor?” He spoke in tone much softer and more relevant than I’d expected, and it caught me off guard. “Mind if I ask you something that might be a little bit personal?”

“You can just call me Night.” I shrugged and waved him in. “And I don’t see the harm in just asking. What’s on your mind?”

“Well…” He stepped in, shutting the door with another small hiss as it sealed. “How is it that you have been able to carry on? After almost everypony you have known has died, after all the hardships you’ve endured… what keeps you going when you should have just given up?”

I had to forcefully push back the boiling blood instantly pumping through my veins from his question. It was a simple question, but just the audacity of asking it to me at all just flipped a switch inside me. I wanted to snap at him, and rant about how it’s been the hardest fucking thing just to keep going like this.

But... that wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring back Buck or the rest of the convoy, and it wouldn’t repair the broken trust Hispano now had in me. Instead, with a sigh, I shrugged.

“I just… needed to keep moving forward, I guess.” Looking up at him, I watched as he studied me. Looking over what felt like every minute detail of me as I answered, all with that same wide smile plastered across his muzzle. “To be truthful, there’s been more than one occasion where I thought I would die, and I was perfectly okay with it.”

“But you do not feel that way now?” Ping asked as he sat down and somewhat relaxed on his haunches. “You do not wish to die?”

I shook my head. While I was ready to die if the situation called for it, unlike when I was with Galina, I no longer willingly asked for it. At least, that is until I find out if Buck had pulled through or not…

I froze as a thought went through my mind.

“Actually, can I ask you something?” I cringed as his smiled drooped slightly, and for some reason, he looked a bit nervous. “It’s more of a favor, really. If you’re in contact with the factory, can you get one of those silverfish drones to check in on someone for me?”

“Ah, we suspected you might bring this up. If I assume correctly, this is about your Snow Dog friend, Buck, and if so, then you need not worry. He is still alive.” Ping forced his smile back across his muzzle, stiffening up and straightening out his legs as he spoke in an almost forced nervousness. Thank the fucking goddesses that Buck still had a fighting chance. “Arrangements have already been made to bring him to the factory where we will be able to help him. The Architect was hoping to tell you this when you arrived, as a show of good faith that we mean you no harm.”

Okay. On one hoof, Buck was still alive and had a chance to be saved. On the other hoof, the pit in my stomach told me that this was leverage.

“A show of good faith?” I laughed under my own breath. “Yeah, right up until I don’t agree to help out you and your ‘Architect’, right?” I fucking knew this was too good to be true. “So why don’t you drop the act and just tell me what the job is.”

“No, you misunderstand us.” Ping sighed, and for the first time, completely lost his smile. Replacing it was a deeply distraught look as his eyes sank to the floor. “There is no trickery with us, our intentions are exactly as stated. Buck will receive help regardless of your decision because, and this may come as a surprise to you, we are not petty like you organics.” His tone shifted, holding a harshness to it that I wasn’t expecting from somepony who’d done nothing but said everything with a smile so far. “I understand your distrust, believe me, I do. But I also know from the actions we have observed, that you are a good pony who has a willingness to help others. A pony who knows what’s right, even if it seems wrong. So I’m asking you to please, at least hear us out and give us a chance before you dismiss us completely.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” I could feel a tiny pegasus inside my mind kicking at my sense of regret.

“Yeah, you say you’re sorry now.” Buck’s ethereal form showed up, towering in front of me with a blink of my eye. I looked up to find him glaring down over his muzzle at me, casting a judgemental gaze as the glowing and smokey wounds on him brightened. “Soon enough though, you’ll be trading his life for yours. You’ll see.”

No, I’d just saved Happy by sacrificing myself! I didn’t need to be second guessed by a bucking figment of my own imagination, let alone visions of Buck now that I knew he was still alive. No, what I needed right now was some fucking Chill so I could make these visions go away.

“Oh come on!” Buck laughed in my face. “You’d already figured you were going to die before you came up with that plan. You never had a clue you’d get out of that fight as unscathed as you did. Don’t take this out on me when I don’t even fucking exist.”

Goddess dammit, just shut up!

“Night, are you alright?” Ping’s voice made Buck’s form pop like a bubble, and I had to blink as my vision refocused on the smiling zebra again. He gave a small gasp before speaking, but this time at a whisper. “Is it your… you know... addiction?” He glanced around shiftily like he was worried somepony else might hear.

“Yeah.” I sighed and nodded, not in the least surprised that he knew about it. “I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Hallucinations of Violet and Buck specifically.” Hanging my head, I almost felt relieved just straight up telling him about it. It wasn’t some big secret, I had a problem, and I needed to own up to it. “Is there any way you could help with them?”

“Well, I regret to inform you that while we have some stored at the Factory, there is no Chill currently stocked on the Ouroboros.” With a dismissive shrug, he simply smiled at me. “In fact, you and Happy have already confiscated all the medical supplies this train had. Even so, the records show that no Chill was ever kept on board.”

Yeah, about the Ouroboros actually…

“So, what even happened on here?” I said, looking around the room again. At the very least, I was pretty sure he was stuffed into that safe while the ponies on here were still alive, so maybe he could clear up the mystery of what happened to them.

“Here?” He scrunched up his muzzle before reaching up and stroking a non-existent beard. “Well, this is a mobile megaspell chamber. Eight unicorns would take their places around the room and channel whatever spell was required onto one of the inert warhead blanks in the cars behind this one. On average, they could create…”

“Woah, woah, hold up right there.” My muzzle spat out the words and cut him off as my mind raced to catch up and process everything. “I meant what happened to the crew onboard the Ouroboros. But seriously!?This is a megaspell chamber!?”

“Correct!” Again, he nodded with a smile parting his muzzle that was far wider than it should have been when speaking about megaspells. “This train was built to be a mobile launch platform that would be untargetable by conventional zebra megaspells. Tactical yield megaspells could be created and fit to the extended range cruise missiles stored onboard. Once an order came in, the Ouroboros could reposition itself to launch them at priority northern zebra targets from any point in Equestrian territory above eight degrees latitude.”

“Well, that certainly explains a few things…” I muttered to myself. The armor, the never stopping anywhere. It pretty much answered everything I’d cared to know about the Ouroborus short of my original question. “But that still leaves something unanswered. What happened to the crew onboard, and how exactly did you get locked in that safe?”

For a second time, Ping’s smile shrank.

“Twenty two years ago, the Architect sent me on a diplomatic mission to the Northern Rangers. At the time, other than having sporadic radio contact with the Rangers at the Galloway airfield, they had yet to be rediscovered by anypony outside of our drone network.” Shifting uneasily on his hooves, Ping looked away as he tensed up. “The chemical research and storage depot they had been confined in since the end of the war was far too secluded to be reached on hoof easily. The only point of contact they had with the outside world was their substandard radio, and the Ouroboros, but they did not have control over it. Due to a system lockout when the war ended, they had to make due with whatever they could download into their system from the Ouroboros as it passed by.”

“For years they had worked to arrange a convoy from Galloway, but we foresaw many problems if this was the case. So, the Architect sent me because he thought it was worth the risk to meet up with them first.” Ping somewhat slumped as he spoke of it, but despite that and the somber tone to his words, he again continued. “So I was deployed as a diplomat, and I was encouraged to offer my assistance to the Northern Rangers in giving control of the Ouroboros to them. Which, I easily did.” Laughing, he looked up at me with a forced smile. “I mean, you would not believe how easy it was to…” His words trailed off.

“So… what happened after you helped them?” I asked as his forced smile dropped into a frown again.

“After I told them what I was, I explained that the factory could collaborate with them to the benefit of both parties.” Kicking his hoof at the floor, his hoof peeled back some of the smooth white material and left a deep groove in it. “Well, let us just say that taking the risk of showing my machine body to them did not go as smoothly as it did with you.”

“So… what? They threw you in the safe and left you there?” I offered to him, only getting a weak nod as my answer.

Honestly, I could believe it. While I’d seen plenty of inequality so far in the wastes, by and far the one thing I hadn’t factored in was the machines I’d met. Nopony really cared about them, treating them as things. And from what I saw in those hangars at Galloway, the Steel Rangers did love to categorize and store plenty of things.

As much as I hated to admit it, I did have to acknowledge that Short Wave back at Pink Mountain had treated his robot like it had been his friend. And when Buck put his claw right through it…

“Anyway,” Ping gave a sniffle as he brought his hoof up to his eye. Was he actually crying? “After I was stuffed into the safe, they built a faraday cage around it to keep me contained and offline until they could figure out where Factory Zero One is. But from the logs that are still stored on the Ouroboros’ computers, they never could locate it.”

“So then you don’t know how they all died?” I asked as he seemed to collect himself a bit.

“I do indeed know.” He shook his head and wiped at his puffy eyes again. For a moment I couldn’t do anything but stare at him. I mean, his tears, the redness on his face. It looked so… real. “They managed to meet up with a small party of Galloway Rangers lead by the elder’s son himself, and brought them all back to their bunker home.” Well, I guess this all happened before Double Delta was exiled. “But it was about a week into their stay that the Northern Rangers started to get sick.”

“Within a few days, the whole base was quarantined, and they blamed the Galloway Rangers, accusing them of poisoning their whole base.” He let out an almost happy laugh as he shook his head again. “Those poor paranoid fools all died looking for a cure to some magical toxin that did not exist in their systems. They did not realize that you cannot spend the better part of two centuries locked inside and not expect to have your immune systems fall behind. Antibiotics mixed with healing potions would have saved them, but they did not even try.”

“They just… got sick and died? And they blamed the Galloway Rangers for that?” I had to stifle my own laugh from how utterly stupid that sounded. Seriously, you have some of the most advanced equipment from the war available to you, and you get killed by the common cold? “Even the Enclave knew we needed to keep up on our immunizations. Though… now that I think about how they lied and terrorized the wastes, I guess I know where they got all their formulas from…”

“This is why I understand how you hesitate to trust us, Night.” Ping’s eyes wandered up to meet mine as he struggled to pull his frown up into a somewhat neutral, if worried look. “My kind has never been received well among organics, and you must understand the risk we take in bringing you to Factory Zero One. Few organics know, and even fewer work with us as it is. Even then, it is questionable whether or not they do so purely because we have material things to offer them. One of the Architect’s prime directives for us is to do nothing that might make the sum of our parts more valuable to an organic than another reward we could offer.”

“I understand, Ping.” I spoke and tried to offer him a comforting smile. However, halfway through it, my brain kicked at me and I scrunched up my muzzle. “I mean, I don’t really understand how a machine can think for itself, but… I’m not going to question it. It’s not my place to decide if it’s possible or not, and I have far too many other things to worry about right now.”

Like just how I was going to deal with Mr. Wizard, and how we were going to catch up to and deal with Solomon. That’s not even mentioning the fact that we still don’t know how to decipher the code for the Ark. Goddesses, I guess I was starting to truly understand what it was like for Delilah on a day to day basis.

“That is good to hear.” Slowly, his smile spread back across his face. Even though I could still see worry clawing at his crimson eyes, it was at the very least less than it had been before. “All we ask is for you to remain open to the idea, and to stay impartial when it comes to what we choose to do or not to.” Reaching his forehoof out to me, I returned the gesture and took ahold of it with my fetlock. With a firm shake and nod, the worry disappeared from him completely, and he got up to his hooves. “Well, we will be arriving at the Factory in only a couple of minutes. I will assist you in gathering what you have collected, but it would be a good idea to wake up Happy and tell him to limber up.”

“Limber up?” I paused as I ran that through my mind a few times. “I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?”

I blinked at Ping as his smile widened, and an intense look of worry grew across his muzzle. Oh, Celestia, why was I so damn sure that I wasn’t going to like whatever answer he was going to give me? And more so, why could I already feel myself wanting just a few tabs of Chill to numb what was inevitably going to be something that would end in pain…

Even from the confines of the shredded accordion-like corridor, I could feel how thin the air was outside. We’d gained quite a bit of altitude in the time the train took to get here, and based on how everything was blanketed in a thick layer of snow, I had to guess we were somewhere among the peaks of the Misery range. Now that the Ouroboros had slowed to a somewhat slower pace, I guess we were about to find out exactly where we were.

“Does anypony want to tell me why we have to jump?” Happy spoke through a yawn as we watched the snowbanks roll by along the edge of the tracks. Turning to Ping, Happy’s nervous glance was somewhat repelled by the still ridiculous grin that the mechanized Zebra gave. “You said you control the train. Can’t you make it stop?”

“Negative. The Ouroboros is powered by a self sustaining magical singularity.” Ping shook his head slowly. “It is that singularity’s angular momentum that allows the train to drive itself forward indefinitely. Excess magical and thermal radiation generated by the megaspell helps to power the defensive systems and other onboard services. But if we were to come to a stop, the Ouroboros would find itself unable to radiate away a cascading thermal excess, and it would quickly fail to maintain a safe pressure equilibrium.”

“Uh…” Happy scrunched up his muzzle as he gave a glance over to me. “Is there a translation to dumb Equestrian for that?”

“Don’t fucking ask me.” I rolled my eyes and gave out a sigh. “Hispano and Buck are the smart ones. I just get everypony into trouble.” While he deadpanned at me, Happy at least shrugged and gave me that. Hell, I couldn’t even argue with myself on that.

“To put it simply, the train cannot physically stop without being destroyed. It can only slow to the speed we are now traveling at.” Ping spoke up as he looked between Happy and I. “Normally a unicorn with teleportation is used, or an adjacent and equally fast train can be brought alongside to facilitate standard boarding of the Ouroboros.” Well, score another win for those fucking unicorns and their cheater magic I suppose. With a gasp, Ping’s smile brightened as he put his hoof on Happy’s side. “We have reached the disembarkation point. It is time to go.”

“Wait… w-what!?” Happy sputtered as Ping wrapped his forehoof under Happy and effortlessly picked him straight up off the floor. “H-hey, put me the fuck down!”

“Do not worry!” Ping laughed. “You will incur minimal pain, I assure you.”

“What, minimal!?” Happy flailed for a moment before looking to me with a pleading glance. “Night, you’ve gotta…

Before he could finish, Ping threw himself and Happy off of the train. The two of them disappeared into a blast of white as they struck the railside snowbank, and I was left alone. Unfurling my wings, I pulled the straps of my beat up jump pack tighter, and made sure the guns and my new Saddlebags were secured before taking a deep breath.

“Leave them behind.” Violet’s voice whispered into my ear. “Stay on the train and ride it far from here.”

That isn’t going to happen. Seriously, could the voices fuck off already?

“If you step off this train now?” Buck’s voice resonated through my mind. “You’ll condemn the rest of your friends to death.”

Then maybe this time I’ll die with them!

With an angry grunt, I flared out my wings and pushed myself forward. Hopping through the shredded barrier, I smiled as both Buck and Violet’s voices were silenced in my mind. The moment I passed the edge of the armored train carts, I felt the thin air do it’s best to blast at my side and slow me down. Still, as I started to turn into the air so I could glide, I couldn’t fight the widening grin that stretched across my muzzle.

Goddesses, flying made me feel so damn free…

*Thump*

My vision spun as I smacked dead flat against some sort of metal bunker. It forced the air from my lungs as I bounced off and fell down into the slushy wet snow of a well used, muddy dirt road. Gasping as I watched bright stars dance around in my vision, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of deja vu here.

Go flying, check. Feel free as a bird, check. Smack right into some sort of metal container? Check...

The rumble of an arcane engine started up from said metal container. Now that really felt familiar. Perking my ears, I did my best to push myself upright, but as I tried to stand, I put my weight onto my prosthetic, and ended up flopping into the freezing cold mud again with a whimper. Dammit, it couldn’t have popped off very far from me...

“I’m sorry, Survivor.” A mare’s booming but calmly monotone voice came through a megaphone on the metal box beside me. “I hadn’t realize I was parked in your way. Are you alright?”

Blinking the stars and dizziness away, I looked up to see what in the wide world of Equestria I’d even hit. Like most things I tended to crash into, it turns out it wasn’t just some random box. Nope, it was a vehicle of some sort, but what kind of vehicle, I couldn’t even begin to speculate.

For starters, it was big. It was a vehicle that rode on tracks that were at least as large as the K-tank I’d seen back at Stone Town. The whole vehicle itself was big enough in fact that it took up most of the wide dirt road I found myself on. This thing however, was much, much taller than any tank or vehicle I’d seen outside of Large Marge.

It had boxy superstructures bolted onto it that were miss-sized and non-symmetrical to its central rectangular body. The whole of the massive machine was at least twice as tall as Bertha, and held a pair of what looked like pronged rakes against each side of it. These rakes seemed more like they were meant to be used as digging tools, and held an auger that ran all the way down their shovel-like spines. Robust hydraulic pistons held the long raked arms flat against the rest of the vehicle, which made me think that the arms were supposed to extend outwards. If that was true, then these rakes probably gave the vehicle twice its own already impressive width when fully extended.

Other than that, it was just sort of dull and flat on the rest of it. It didn’t help that it had been painted a sort of matte grey color, and only a few bits of faded paint stood out as different to me. First, was up on the front of it. Unit 02 was written in uniform black lettering that was big enough you could probably read it from a mile away. Secondly, the logo for a company that wasn’t familiar to me sat near the base of its central boxy body. Lunar Industries LTD.

To be honest, it looked more like a piece of construction equipment I’d have found with the Road Crew, rather than something left all the way out in the middle of nowhere. So, pretty par for the course when it comes to me running into things I guess...

“What the hell is this thing…” I spoke up as I tried to collect myself. A small terminal screen inset near the armored skirting of the machine’s enormous tracks flickered on, and the head of a smiling cartoon pony popped up on it.

“I’m Eliza, a prototype autonomous ore harvester commissioned for use by Lunar Industries. I was meant for a prospective Office of Interministry Affairs project that was previously classified with Celestial Tier secrecy.” The booming voice of the machine mare had a surprisingly chipper tone to it, even if it still sounded a bit monotone overall. The image of the smiling mare shifted to one that almost looked concerned. “I have sustained no damage from your impact. However, are you alright, Survivor?”

“I am sure Night is fine, Eliza. This is nothing he has not already dealt with before a few times.” Ping called out as he and Happy plodded through the snow banks toward me. And hey! I may have a problem with Chill, but I will not be lectured on my startling propensity to injure myself on mining vehicles! “The real question is, what are you doing out here? Still visiting the new mine, are you?”

“Ping, you’ve returned. It is good to see you back home.” Eliza’s voice brightened again, but still maintained it’s monotone sort of speech. Likewise, the picture on the terminal changed to that of a brightly smiling mare. “And of course I’m visiting the mine. I can’t stand to be cooped up all the time in the Factory. With my limited speed and range, where else would I go?”

“Eliza, you know you are not supposed to be out there.” Ping sighed as he trotted over and hoofed my prosthetic to me, which I happily forced onto my stump. “You know that is the deal we have with the organics out in Tungsten. I know you miss the work, but they run the mines now, and we trade for the ore. I am sorry, but that is simply how it has to be.”

“Yes, I know.” She gave out a soft sigh, shifting the image of the mare to one with a frown. “It’s just… I feel like if I’m not mining, then I’m disappointing everypony. I just hate feeling so useless and outdated these days. I want to get out and stretch my harvesters a bit sometimes. I’m sure you understand.” Her picture shifted again, this time to one of a mare with a scrunched up muzzle. “I’m sorry if I keep causing trouble.”

On some level, I could sympathise with her. I couldn’t stand to feel useless either, and I know how it is to want to just get out there. Even if I knew that compared to others, I couldn’t really ever fly like I wanted to…

Wait, am I calling it a her just because it sounds like a mare? You know what? Whatever, this has all been weird enough that I don’t care.

“You know, this thing certainly looks like some sort of oversized combine harvester...” Happy wheezed as he pushed out from the snow bank and nearly collapsed in a heaving lump on the muddy road. “Wait, did you say Lunar Industries?” He paused, tapping at his chin in thought. “Doesn’t Burro Industries own that company?”

“Correct.” Ping nodded. “Lunar Industries was a subsidiary of Burro Industries that was not actively retained for very long before being closed. A lawsuit filed by Robronco cited that the government had given them exclusivity to the project, which caused Lunar Industries to lose the rights of development and all government funding. As a means of paying back their grants, all of Lunar Industries physical assets were seized by the O.I.A. and the company was shuttered.”

“When the O.I.A. came up to look at me, they decided to continue my trials, at least for a little bit. But, after they were done doing the extreme environment portion of the testing, the O.I.A. left me up here to rust.” Eliza gave a short but hollow sounding laugh over her loudspeakers. “But then Architect came and gave me a second chance at life. He saved all of us with the creation of the Factory.”

“That he did.” Ping nodded before rubbing at his neck nervously. “Say, Eliza, do you still have your excursion rover with you? I would like to borrow it, as the factory is still a ways out, and I would rather not let our guests freeze to death.”

“Of course, Ping.” Eliza’s image shifted back to the mare with the bright smile again. “After all, I’m here to help.”

With a stuttering whine, the hydraulic systems on the enormous mining machine came to life, and a large, heavy looking ramp rotated down from the back of her. Trotting through the mud to her back, I glanced up into the opening to find a large vehicle sitting completely nestled inside. It looked like a sort of six wheeled military supply truck. It was mostly square overall, but had a very angular front. A thin, visor-like windshield wrapped around the front and sides of what appeared to be a cramped but sealed driving cab, and it had a small cupola on its roof with a hatch that looked to be the only way in or out.

“So, not to be that guy,” Happy spoke up as walked over to the ramp with more than a slight shiver to him. I mean, I had my innate pegasus insulation to protect me, but I almost felt bad that all Happy had to keep him warm out here was his ragged and torn up floral print shirt. “But now that the train is gone, how exactly will we be getting back to civilization after we meet this ‘Architect’ of yours?”

“Actually, the Ouroboros is not gone.” Ping spoke with a smile that matched the one the mare on Eliza’s terminal gave. “Before we jumped off, I instructed the system to maintain a fifty kilometer loop around the Factory, and to wait for instructions from its new owners.” As he trotted his way up the ramp into Eliza’s garage, he paused to beam his smile at both Happy and I. “I mean, Happy Trails here did surmise that since you stole the train, the act makes it yours. Seeing as how no one else is around to lay claim to it, and it is of little use to the Factory, I do not suppose why it would not now belong to you? However, boarding her again might prove to be... difficult.”

“Wait, you’re serious!? You’re letting us keep the train?” Happy giggled excitedly as he all but galloped around my side and up the ramp next to Ping. When ping gave him a quick nod, Happy almost bucked for joy. “Sweet! Our own fucking armored train!”

“Don’t get too excited, Happy.” I grumbled as I pulled myself up onto the ramp and trotted into the open rear hold. “I hate to disappoint you, but we might need to use it as a bargaining chip to get Cora back from Mr. Wizard.” Reaching up and giving him a pat on the side, the thought of giving that asshole his own supertrain didn’t fill me with happiness either. “But let’s focus on one thing at a time. For now, we need to go and meet with this ‘Architect’.”

Author's Notes:

Of course, as always I need to give a big shout out and thanks to TheFurryRailFan for his help in making sure the chapter is in tip-top shape before I put it up! Thanks bud, you're awesome!

And thanks to Kkat for letting us all run around in this amazing universe!