"Greetings Library patron! Due to an Equestria wide state of emergency, the Trotson Public Library is currently closed. Please return when the cowardly zebra threat has passed, or provide identification and proper clearance."

I winced at the voice crackling out of the intercom next to the heavy steel door, the chipper report echoed down the stone steps and ruined station platform. Not exactly stealthy... Fumbling to patch my pip-buck to the noisy computer, I looked up sheepishly to Zed face-hoofing to himself beside me.

"Sorry! Just a second, it's a public building, this isn't meant to be a sneaky way in."

The anxious zebra paced behind me while I worked and groaned, "Hopefully they aren't now all waiting on the other side for us to stick our muzzles in."

"It shouldn't be making noise inside, just at this speaker. Doesn't look like they want to advertise their presence down here either, so if we're lucky they stay away from the entrance." I tried to comfort him as my pip-buck and the security door communicated with a chatter.

I hissed in annoyance when the computer piped up out of the intercom again, having read my identification from the hoofshake with the pip-buck, it had apparently recognized me... "Library card #183209, Fast Times, your book 'The Eggheads Guide to Running' is 203.9 years late! Please report immediately to the checkout desk to pay your accrued late fees of 58,082 bits."

The door gave a loud click and creaked open, having such outrageous late fees on an overdue book must have triggered a back door through the security. It did get rather flashy with angry faces on the screen when it discovered it, having such a grossly overdue book apparently ranked higher than the end of the world. I gave a shaky smile and pulled the rusty door open, gesturing to Zed at the open passageway.

He gave a sardonic look over his shoulder as he passed into the dark stairwell leading up, whispering a question back to me. "The Egghead's Guide to Running? Is that where you learned that spell?"

"Er... noooo... the running of the leaves was happening soon... before the end I mean. A friend asked me to go, but I was never a big athlete pony... I thought it would help, ended up not mattering after all though. Got us through this door at least..."

Zed nickered quietly and crept up the stone stairs, pausing and making a show of stepping over a tripwire I spotted barely glinting in the dim light. After Thundega I had become paranoid about stairs and traps, instantly spotting the grenade bouquets hanging over our heads. I didn't have Val's skills with explosives, so avoiding them was the best option I could manage, rather than disarming them and taking the grenades to resupply my own limited stock.

The wide stairs reached a landing ahead before splitting off and turning back on themselves, a pair of corroded green unicorn statues framing the landing. Eyes Forward Sparkle was starting to pick up a few red marks of hostiles in the library above, thankfully only one bulky, robed guard leaned against the stone railing above the stairs, their back turned to us and leaning against the crumbling barrier.

Zed and I slipped by quietly, ducking into a disused side door off the main hallway the guard occupied and creeping into the cluttered, dusty space beyond. A maze of rotting boxes full of musty books and scrolls filled the room, each was stamped with the logo of the Ministry of Image. A large desk ahead had several of the marked boxes stacked on top of it, books unloaded from the boxes on the left were strewn over its surface and repacked boxes on the right were stamped 'Sanitized', a bleached pony skeleton sat at the desk, the cracked wooden stamp on the floor near its bony hoof.

I poked at the book propped open in front of the corpse, blowing dust off to look over the brittle pages. A book of Zebra folklore? It was hard to tell, large portions of the words on the page were strangely missing, leaving big blank sections. A soft buzzing rose up from the heaps of literature nearby as E.F.S. lit up with new red dashes in my vision, a trio of parasprites hovered up and hissed in our direction, darting forward to attack.

One of the tiny creatures slurped a sentence off the page it was crawling on before darting towards us, these were closer to the real parasprites I remembered, instead of the mutated bloatsprites I had run into in the wasteland before. Their round bodies were fast and agile, requiring S.A.T.S. assisted attacks to slice silently from the air with Best Served, though Zed caught two with his bare hooves in a flash.

Wiping the smashed remains of one of the pests from his hoof, Zed nodded back to the room and whispered over his shoulder as he led on. "Don't let one get in your mouth, very messy way to die..." Thanks for the horrifying thought Zed...

"The Ministry of Image must have been censoring the books here, I heard they had parasprites trained to eat seditious materials. This seems like a little overkill though..." Taking in the wrecked side rooms and all the boxes of books to edit in here, I couldn't see how all these books were somehow in need of patriotic snipping. Really, how bad could a book of old riddles and brain teasers be? Or a cookbook?

Luckily these side rooms paralleled the hall outside and we made progress through the building unnoticed, what areas didn't have a door to the next already, had gaps and holes in the walls, letting us move on without exposing ourselves to the cultists trafficked areas. Battered and broken wooden doors leading back to the hallway gave Zed and I the opportunity to peek out and get a look at what definitely seemed like the Church of Balefire's Cathedral.

There were robed cultists wandering outside, from the tumors and scars I glimpsed, most looked like those turning to the church for hope with their radiation sickness. I spotted a few thoroughly wrapped in heavy, hooded green robes trying to conceal their mutated nature, more of the Institute's alicorns. There were more signs from what I could see that they were improving the creation process, but all were still androgynous and warped.

Several rooms we passed were occupied by church members on makeshift cots and mattresses, drifting voices from another area sounded like some kind of theological discussion, praising the holy balefire and its divine glow... yada yada yada. There were also regular guard stations tucked away, janitor's closets and bathrooms with a few weapons and supplies waiting the need. A few boxes in one storage area caught my eye, both for being newer and for bearing the crown mark from the King's Gambit Casino. The gun running King's supplied the Church of Balefire magical energy weapons? I filed the odd find away for later thought, trying to trace the web of shadowy connections the Institute wove around itself was frustrating enough when I wasn't trying not to get killed.

I hadn't spotted any real alicorns yet, after my last experience with the church and Virescent I was highly on guard for any of them, muttering a song under my breath quietly as we snuck our way through the area;

"What if there was a place with all the zip of Sparkle Cola
Wouldn’t that be the cheer-cheer-cheeriest place in all the world
Where the river’s made of RAD and the mountaintops are fizz
With fun and games and rides for all the moms and pops and kids..."

"Please... in the name of all you hold holy... stop singing that song Fast..." Zed hissed in front of me during the twenty third barely audible refrain, his grey eye twitching over his shoulder and his ears flattened.

"Er... sorry... It's mental white noise, in case there's any mind readers around like Ivy, she taught me. I'll try to keep it in my head, it's just... catchy..."

That annoyed expression showed he didn't find the old jingle as enjoyable as I did, The two of us hid behind an overturned bookshelf rotting into a heap of moldy lumber, giving me a minute to check over my pip-buck for the time and look at the map. Our cautious exploring had filled in the basic outline of this side of the building on the screen, if the other matched then the library was essentially a big rectangle with an open courtyard in the middle.

We'd have to cross the hall to get to the interior rooms facing the courtyard, the exposure would increase our risk but it was one area I wanted to see before leaving. A collapsed section of floor led down to the ground level we crawled our way to, most of the cultists seemed to live on the second floor so the dark room was long unused. Zed had slipped to the door and was watching the hall outside through cracks in the dirty, frosted glass, giving me a moment to try to talk to him.

"So... want to tell me what it is you're looking for yet? Besides your brother I mean, y'know... just in case we run into it? Can't keep my eye out if I don't know what it is, don't ya trust me yet Zed?"

He gave the gloom outside a long, hard stare in silence while I waited, finally glancing back at me giving him a hopeful look and groaning, waving me over away from the door to a dark hiding place behind a broken table. "Fine... You are right, you may spot what I hope to find and not know it. I am looking for a mirror..."

"A mirror?" Zed had been so obsessively focused on a mirror? Really?

"A piece of a mirror actually, it is black, framed in bone and etched with zebra runes. Do not touch it if you see it, just tell me so I may retrieve it safely." Well he certainly looked serious about it, regarding this mirror of his as dangerous judging by his tone.

I reached out to touch his shoulder before he could move off again, "Hold up, you can't just leave it at that Zed. A mirror? That's what your brother stole, what you've been hunting so desperately? A piece of a mirror? How about some details?"

"It is an artifact of dark magic Fast, a shameful bit of zebra history my family has been charged with safeguarding. Perhaps I will tell you the whole story, when we're not in the middle of a stronghold of enemies...." Zed answered sarcastically and darted to the door, sticking his head out and checking both directions before rolling across the hall and into a door marked 'Periodicals'.

I had to wait out a trio of robed cultists coming around the corner, the heavy hoofsteps of the hulk in the middle marking him as one of the earth pony variety of mutant alicorns. Once the patrol had passed I dashed across the hall and into the large periodicals room, diving behind a moldy sofa set up for reading the long rotted newspapers on rods hung about the room.

Zed had crept across the room to the interior wall, which was nearly all broken and dirty windows facing the courtyard outside. There would have been lots of natural light and a view of the grounds in here before the war, a nice place to read the news from across Equestria. Now it left us pretty exposed to the crowd of cultists outside.

I crawled under a long table full of ruined books and magazines to join Zed by the window, carefully peering over the windowsill at the activity outside. The enclosed courtyard looked like it had been manicured and maintained in the old world, small, blackened ornamental trees were scattered beside crumbling stone hoofpaths and benches. The afternoon had turned off cloudy, letting only grey light fill the area, augmented by the occasional fire barrel burning to provide spots of warmth and light outside.

There were several holes and gaps in the walls facing the courtyard, ancient scaffolding and newer, cobbled together ramps and stairs allowed access to several areas of the building that the church members passed in and out of as I watched. At least 30-40 marks were filling the compass at the bottom of my vision, nearly all red. That was just what was in the courtyard and above us too, E.F.S. couldn't scan the entire library at once.

Most of the robed cultists outside were focused on a balcony overlooking the courtyard from the second floor to the left, a pony in one of the fancy, embroidered green robes preaching to the crowd gathered below. There was a horn under that gold trimmed hood, but it didn't look like an alicorn at least, though a pair of the big winged mutants were perched to either side of them on the balcony's railing.

Ducking back from the window to sit against the wall, I scratched my head and tapped at my pip-buck in thought, muttering to Zed looking through the window beside me. "Okie dokie lokie.... that's a looooot of cultists. We're almost out of time and this is a reeeeeally big building too Zed. We should probably go back and meet the others, with Jade and Peri if she'll help, we can scout this place out a lot safer invisibly. Fighting these guys will be a problem, so trying to find your brother and this... mirror thing is best done without being caught right?"

His eyes lingered on the windows before turning back to me gruffly, "You go ahead to the rendezvous with the others, I will stay and look around more. By myself I can explore the rest of the building more efficiently, hopefully by the time you return I will have found both my brother and the artifact and we can decide how to proceed."

We were already split up and due to rejoin Val, Jade and her sisters, dividing up further didn't feel right, despite Zed's skills working on his own. I was trying to come up with a valid argument against his plan when the zebra hissed and ducked from the windows, holding a hoof against his muzzle in a hushing gesture as he pushed me down with him.

I gave a confused, questioning look silently, curious about what he had seen at the windows just above, when a regal voice echoed off the walls of the enclosure. "I HAVE COME TO SPEAK WITH EVERGREEN! BRING HER HERE IMMEDIATELY!"

My eyes widened and I nearly jumped up to stare out the dirty windows, held back by Zed grabbing my coat in his teeth and tugging me back sharply with a hiss. I silently winced an apology, but slowly pulled against his grip to peek over the edge of the window, I knew that voice and had to see the speaker.

Hovering outside, above the center of the courtyard and directly in front of the preaching pony on the balcony, the dark purple Umbra flapped lazily in the air and scowled at the throng of cultists staring up at her.

Zed pulled at the hem of my long black coat, forcing me to inch my way across the floor against his weight, trying to get a better view of the Trinity Tower leader outside. What was she doing here?! She knew where the Church of Balefire was? Ivy and the others told us the alicorns who followed Evergreen in splitting off and forming the church were off limits by their leader's order, none of them had known where the church was, but of course the mare in charge had known and kept it secret.

Keeping things quiet was basically Umbra's default position, I should have assumed she knew all along and just refused to tell. Instead she came here by herself to deal with things on her own, I was equal parts annoyed and worried for her as I listened to the mare currently addressing her from the balcony.

"Oh Lady Evergreen's out at the moment I'm afraid. Wonderful to see you again, dare I hope you've reconsidered our offer? Come to rejoin your sisters in one big happy unity again?" That voice sent a chill down my spine and my head popped up on its own, instantly shoved back down by a frantic zebra.

The glance I got confirmed what I heard, the smug smile under that hood belonged to Moondancer... Well, it was probably one of her synth doubles running this place instead, but same difference. Umbra snorted and shook her head angrily in reply, "Hardly! I wish to speak with Evergreen and our other sisters, this has gone too far! These abominations you have created are an insult to the mother and her legacy! I cannot remain silent and ignore this madness any longer!"

"Fast! Don't do anything stupid..." Zed hissed beside me, trying his best to keep me out of sight while I watched out the windows.

I spotted the nearly black alicorn Stormy watching anxiously from a gap in the wall opposite my viewpoint, but she was the only regular alicorn I had seen here so far and she wasn't joining in the argument outside. Much more worrisome were those hooded cultists, nearly all were watching the synth in the fancy robe speaking with Umbra, but more than a couple perched on the roof or shadowy windows were aiming some dangerous weaponry at the Trinity Tower leader. Umbra was proud enough to come here alone and think herself safe among her sisters, even if she disagreed with them, I didn't trust Moondancer or her cult nearly as much however.

The synthetic mare pulled her ornate hood down, revealing her rose and purple streaked mane, this version didn't bother with glasses over her violet eyes and gave a wounded look to the angry alicorn hovering in front of her. "Oh that is a shame... I had hoped you'd come around dear, if only you had waited a bit longer, we intended to have something significant to show you, and Evergreen was so hoping it would finally convince you. I understand you disapprove of our... early attempts here, but they are important first steps and quite useful, very loyal little helpers. How about you go back to your tower and behave yourself, I'll send Evergreen over when we're ready and you two mares can have a nice chat then?"

Umbra growled and tracked the synth pacing in front of her slowly, grumbling out a pained reply. "I will speak with her now, go get her. I... I may have been wrong to disregard her feelings towards her stallion in the past, I believe now she may have been right about many things... But not this! I have heard enough about you Institute ponies and the things you have done, the methods you use and the madness behind them.

I will concede Evergreen may be right, but this is the wrong way to go about it. Much as I may wish otherwise, I cannot remain uninvolved... take my time and hope things improve without doing anything. I want to fix things, atone for my mistakes and move forward together, for that I must speak with my sister, NOW."

Oh please don't tell me she was here because of me... I had pushed her, complained about her tendency to avoid and ignore change, now she was here, alone... trying to reconcile with Evergreen and change. I really had to learn to just keep my fool mouth shut, even trying to help ended up wrong and hurting others, both Umbra's feelings and her health if this kept going.

Zed's ears twitched against the high pitched whine of my gauss rifle charging to full power, I had it propped in a broken corner window so the glow of my magic didn't give us away. Scanning the large number of firing positions pointing towards Umbra, I gulped when I heard the synth Moondancer's voice grow icy.

"I'm afraid that just won't do dear... As long as you ladies were staying quiet and hidden in your tower, Dr. Dala was content to leave you alone and hope you'd come around eventually. This sounds like you're going to be a problem though, stand in the way of progress! No, we can't have that..."

"Shit... Zed, I think we're going to have a problem... I know you want to be all ninja-zebra alone in here, but this doesn't sound good..." I groaned taking in the huge anti-materiel rifle hanging off the roof, the long barrel was pointing right at Umbra from behind, and the sickly looking pony holding it appeared far too twitchy through the scope of the Last Minute.

With his teeth grinding in my ear, Zed looked out over the situation outside, his grey eyes darting back and forth as he tried to refuse. "No! She was foolish enough to come here alone, this is not our concern! You... you use that spell of yours, run and get the others quickly! I will hurry my search until you return!"

The robed synth hummed to herself and looked up thoughtfully, stretching the seconds as more heavy weapons were brought to bear out of Umbra's view while the synth continued politely. "If something were to happen to you though, the others would be without leadership. Lost and alone without the strong Umbra who's kept them together, sheltered them and made them depend on her..."

I floated out the darkened metal padded shoes Sassy Saddles had crafted for me and started awkwardly squeezing into them while watching through the scope. I wasn't going to have enough time to use my lightning walking to reach the others as Zed suggested, but the spell would be useful. "I know you hear that too... I can't let her die Zed! I can't order you to leave, you can stay and look around while they're after me I guess. I'll try to get away and get to the others, I think it'd be better if you got them instead, but it's your choice..."

Umbra might not sense the inevitable conclusion the synth was reaching, the dark blue Stormy looked to work it out however. The grey maned mare came out from her shadowed exit from the library and stared up to the synth, concerned confusion evident on her face. "Er... Confessor... What are you saying? Sister Umbra has admitted she made a mistake, we can work together again, there's no reason for... anything to happen..."

The synth spared her a distracted glance before returning to her pacing, speaking largely to herself. "Hmm... yes, works better if we suffer a loss too, bring you all together in shared tragedy... Have to speak with Vega and Public Relations, come up with a good story, who to use as a villain though? Maybe Goodneighbor? Put a stop to those friendly overtures from that ghoul... Yes I think that will work, we can put Evergreen right in the tower as the new leader and have those mares too scared and angry to think about joining other communities again, despite that meddling 'Princess'."

"Zed, whatever you're doing, get away from me now and hide..."

I could see my zebra companion scowl at me incredulously, torn on what to do before slipping off quietly. I hated screwing up the first progress he had made trying to find this place and his brother, I really couldn't blame him if he focused on that goal with it right in front of him and wished him luck whatever he chose.

The sick pony on the roof chambered a round into his anti-materiel rifle as other waiting snipers adjusted their aim to the blue Stormy, neither mare had really understood the danger yet. Once their shields were up they were a great deal harder to kill, without them they were flesh and blood ponies that would die like any other, without even the benefit of barding to protect them. The synth Moondancer was counting on their confusion and false sense of security, her hoof raised to the air to signal the snipers waiting the order to kill both alicorns before they realized the danger.

"A shame to lose two more of you, but that won't be such a great loss soon and it's worth the cost here. Don't worry, as a martyr you'll continue to lead your sisters to the future Umbra, goodby..."

CRACK!

The flat report of the Last Minute interrupted the smug synth just before her hoof came down, shattering the dirty windows I perched at and messily obliterating the hooded head of the sniper on the roof. Both Umbra and Stormy instantly raised their bright round shields, the misfired anti-materiel rifle plowing a hole in the dirt at Umbra's hooves and several surprised shots sparking off both the blue and purple barriers.

Fighting off the instinct trying to tell me what a horrible idea this was, I cast my flickering lightning walking spell, sent a prayer to the goddesses, and leapt through the tinkling glass of the remaining windows. Skidding to a lightning arcing stop in the open courtyard that diverted everyone's tense attention, I gulped and put on my best Shrouded Stallion voice.

"Greetings Evildoers! This den of blasphemy is an affront to Goddess Luna! Now you've brought down her wrath, daring to assault her children! Her servant, the Shrouded Stallion has come for you all, repent while you can!"

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed, broken only by the wet thump of the sniper from the roof tumbling to the ground, his long rifle clattering to the stone walk nearby. Playing up the role of the Shroud often at least had this effect, whether born of real fear Luna was punishing them for their heresy, or from just plain shock at the totally unexpected crazy pony barging in, the cultists froze and stared silently at me floating out the Terrible Shotgun and Vengeance to replace the gauss rifle, unsure how to respond.

"YOU?!? What are you doing here!?" Umbra broke the silence with a shocked yell, bristling with annoyance at running into me yet again today. Well, the feeling was somewhat mutual at this point...

"Umbra, get out of here now! In case you weren't paying attention that synth decided to kill you and her!" I shouted to the Trinity Tower leader and the dark blue Stormy watching us in stunned silence, nervously spoting all the red marks on E.F.S. beginning to move and take cover.

The synth Stormy had called Confessor had stood on her hindlegs to lean over the balcony railing above and peer at me happily, tossing her long, groomed mane and floating a strange gun to her side. "Excellent! Just the pony this one failed to retrieve, what a wonderful turn of events! Children, kill those two and capture the little one, we can salvage this whole farce and proceed to the next phase!"

Firing a few rounds from the Terrible Shotgun got the synth to duck back down and stop yelling orders, unfortunately the fanatical church members only needed to be told once. Green M.E.W. beams and gunfire poured into the courtyard from all sides, most of it converging on the two alicorns and battering their shields.

The Confessor's strange gun fired from over the railing with a soft 'pfft' sound that was nearly lost in all the noise, leaving a series of odd darts protruding from the dirt nearby. One of the feathered rounds impacted my coat and fell away, while a final dart had found a bit of flesh past my sleeve and dug in with a burning sensation. Poison? I shook my head to clear my vision of the medical alerts my pip-buck had thrown up, dodging clumsily away from more darts and gunfire zeroing in on me. Not poison at least... tranquilizer darts, perfect...

Kellogg's huge revolver Vengeance boomed twice and the burly earth pony that charged at Umbra skidded to a heap at her hooves, the big mare goggled at me dashing past her and firing the gleaming pistol at more cultists pouring from the exit he had used. I really wished she handled the unexpected better right now... from her confused look she was still playing catch up, even as more weapon fire sparked off her weakening shield.

"RUN UMBRA! Go! Like NOW! Teleport away, take Stormy with you or they're gonna kill her too!" I ducked behind the broken brickwork of the makeshift entrance I had taken, firing my shotgun from the flank at anything moving just to keep heads down.

She might not have seen the betrayal coming, but pointing out one of her sisters in danger seemed to sink right in. Umbra followed my frantic gesture and her yellow eyes took on the slitted appearance of an angry dragon's on spotting the dark blue Stormy under attack. She teleported to the blue's side in a flash of magic, blasting several surprised attackers with a beam of bright violet magic.

I hoped having one of her own to protect would be enough to get Umbra moving and they'd both get away safely, I had my hooves full worrying about myself now though. I reloaded Vengeance on the run and dashed into the gloomy library interior, staying outside was just putting myself in a shooting gallery, at least only so many enemies could come at me at once inside.

Trying to move through the choked aisles of bookshelves and ruin inside also meant I couldn't run all out with my lighting walking spell, everything was too cluttered and chaotic to even attempt escaping at full speed. A few bright green beams of magical energy weapons impacted my side with a chatter from my rad meter and a burning even through the magical armor. A gaggle of cultists were pushing into the large room I had entered, blasting through the ruined bookshelves separating us, setting them on fire in several places as I scrambled to stay low and return fire.

Slamming through the nearest door to the hall, I nearly ran directly into a hulking mutant alicorn just reaching it from the other side. The rough looking club of rebar and concrete it carried bashed into my side as I fired in surprised reflex, three .45 rounds found their mark in his broad chest while I was sent flying from the heavy blow.

The padding I asked Sassy to add to her Shrouded Stallion armor helped a lot, but that still knocked the wind out of me and sent a stitch in my side at the first desperate breath I managed to take. I rolled across the floor with my skidding progress when several spells started tearing chunks out of the rotting floor nearby. The two long horned mutants launching the magical assault from down the hall gave me incentive to get back to my hooves with a clatter, running in place a bare second before finding traction and blasting down the more open hallway, away from the mutant spell slingers.

A rusty 'EXIT' sign barely hanging to the ceiling by one brave screw pointed the only way I could think of to go, E.F.S. was so full of red that every direction was equally dangerous at this point. I emptied the drum on the Terrible Shotgun as I passed through an intersection of hallways, hitting a couple of the horde of cultists galloping out of a stairwell.

A few ancient soda machines long ago pried open and emptied provided a hefty bit of cover to dive behind when they returned fire, giving a moment huddled behind Celestia's smiling face on the Sunrise Sarsaparilla machine to reload. We hadn't restocked in Goodneighbor since the Kings controlled so much of the weapons trade, I definitely didn't have enough ammo to fight an army. Two more drums of regular shotgun ammo, a hoofull of .45s and 2mm ECs... at least I had a more comfortable margin of 10mm rounds, after that there was always my knife if it came down to it...

Another couple darts impacted my coat, leaving pungent wet spots where the drugged needles failed to penetrate. I dodged out from my cover, the half dozen cultists coming from down the other hall had ended that bit of fragile safety. More green M.E.W. beams impacted the broken machine just behind me, melting large portions of the tall metal box.

A dozen darts had pinged off the appliance too, raining to the wooden hallway, from the stinging warmth on my neck I was afraid at least one had found its mark too. More medical alerts blurred at the edges of my vision and I threw myself through the inviting double doors to my left, ahead of the crowd chasing me and more joining in from ahead.

Focusing on the sign on the door as I pushed through was too difficult, but the faded, formerly brightly colored decorations, short shelves, tiny furniture and small books littering the room made it easy to identify, the foals library section. I stumbled through the sunken reading nook in the middle of the large room, trying not to let my disjointed thoughts linger on the last time I was here as a foal, or the tiny bones crunching under my weaving hooves.

The foals section check out desk was just on the other side of the open reading pit, giving me somewhere to hide among all the friendly looking children's books waiting centuries to go back on the shelves. Moving as quickly as possible, I downed one of the small number of healing potions I had in my bags, smacking myself in the head and squinting to focus on the tiny text of my inventory sorter.

I wished I still had a vial of Dash hidden somewhere to counter the tranquilizer, but I had used the last I had some time ago. I had tried to rationalize away the itch I felt when I realized I didn't have any by refusing to buy more, if I found some and had it around for emergencies that was one thing, seeking the drug out and buying it was a step further and closer to having a problem.

Now I wished I had found some... it wasn't like it would have been hard in Goodneigbor, they probably had a dozen different flavors of the stuff there...

My eyes did hang on something useful on my pip-buck's inventory and I floated Steel Dance's old grenade launcher Thump-Thump out, along with a couple molotov cocktails from the depths of my saddlebags. I huddled behind the wooden counter facing the doors that banged open, disgorging a crowd of pursuers. I only had a couple of the 40mm explosive rounds left, but that would work here.

I lit the molotovs with a simple flame spell I had managed to learn from my studies, not much stronger than a match, but enough to let me toss the flaming bottles at the clump of red on E.F.S. I took advantage of the chaos when they exploded with a 'fwoomp!' and the cultist's robes caught fire quite nicely, to fire my remaining explosives for good measure. Burning through a full clip of 10mm rounds as I ran out to take down a few more distracted church members, I rolled out to the moldy bookshelves nearby and crept down the aisles as fast as I dared.

One nice thing about being short, I could hide behind the foal sized shelving while my attackers heads peeked over them, making avoiding them much easier. I nearly made it to a side door back out when I brushed a rusting metal rack that once held comics, toppling the wire rack with a crash as I dove for the door.

Gunfire and more darts perforated the wooden door swinging shut behind me, some of it nailing me in the flank on the way out. My black Shroud armor kept repairing damage done to it, but I didn't regenerate nearly so well, fresh blood ran down my coat under my armor and I desperately wondered if another dart had gotten lucky or if the ones that had already hit were just taking more effect.

Either way, I couldn't focus on the medical alerts beeping more insistently in my ear and stumbled woozily down the hall, taking drunken shots at the blurry, green robed blobs darting about in my vision. A buzzing red spot of color up on the wall was easy enough to figure out though, a flickering EXIT sign pointing towards filtered grey daylight lighting the hall.

I ran through another clip of 10mm ammo spraying the hall behind me over my shoulder, the Terrible Shotgun barking at anything moving ahead of me while I wove my way forward. Almost there... Just have to get outside, run as fast as I can before I pass out, hope for the best... Lifting a hoof to push open the glass doors leading to the street, I fell forward through empty air and landed on my face, tumbling down a set of cracked stone steps. Ok... not glass doors, empty door frames...

My head felt like it was dipped in lead as I pushed myself back up, firing a dozen more 10mm rounds in the general direction of the doors behind me and lurching to the street. I vaguely felt a muted, stinging pinch at my neck and my vision doubled, sending me reeling into the gutter.

A shadow crossed the diffuse light above, making me gape upward to the sky only to get smashed in the muzzle by something very hard moving very fast... Crossing my eyes to focus let me see the large winged mutant landing over me, its forehooves touching the pavement with a click and hiss of power hooves.

The best I could manage was to ineffectually swipe weakly at its legs and groan senselessly, feeling sick to my stomach when it easily picked me up and draped me over its back, trotting back to the grey bulk of the library I had almost escaped. I held on enough to catch a series of disjointed images from my perch as it carried me back through the maze of stairs, halls and shelves.

The last I heard was the delighted voice of Confessor Moondancer, my muddled brain struggling to make out her exclamation following me down into the dark. "Wonderful! Let's take him through the relay right away, Dr. Dala will be so pleased!"

I was back in Stable 111...

The huge, dark, empty space I was in wasn't easy to identify, but I knew. Sitting there in a pool of light shed by the towering stasis pod behind me, I stared at the burning red SHIFT 3 #101 on the case, the kiss mark below it gleaming with that same crimson light the numbers shed. I was wearing my old Stable barding, in the middle of an empty Icebox floor, #101 the only pod in all this emptiness.

"You forgot about us Fast..."

"MOM!?" I shouted out to the sad voice echoing out of the darkness, wanting to see the owner so much it hurt.

"Of course he did dear, he never cared about us..."

"DAD!? Where are you guys!?"

"We're all still waiting Fast, waiting and waiting and you never come. You went and found somepony else, no wonder you don't care about me anymore..."

I stammered at the bright yellow spot of light that appeared out in the dark, the red and orange mane a torch burning in the gloom. Sunset Mist stared at me with sad green eyes, wiping a tear away as I watched.

"Sunset!! I do care! I'm trying to find all of you!"

The brilliant filly wept quietly and shook her head, "No, you found a new family, new friends, a special somepony... so you forgot all about us, all about me... Now you'll never find us."

"I-I will! I promise I will! I haven't forgotten you, any of you! I'll find a way somehow, we'll all be together again! Y-You'll see, I will!"

"Naw you won't, you can't. Had yourself a fine ol' time an' got on with yer life, now it's over..." The brown form of Grizz faded into view besides Sunset, draping a hoof over her shoulder to comfort her sobs.

"Grizz? W-What?"

Grizz gave me a hard look, devoid of any of his old friendliness and good humor. His Red Ryder BB gun materialized in his hooves and swung towards me, Grizz's voice like steel as he sighted down the weapon at me. "Don'cha get it Fast? Yer dead..."

The toy BB gun fired, not with the soft 'pfft' of compressed air, but with a noise like the end of the world. The vast empty space filled with blinding light as I screamed, feeling the BB punch right in my flank, just where I had hit Sprokets that had caused my wrecked stasis pod and started everything.

"aaaaaAAAAAAHHHHH!! I'M SORRY! I PROMISE I'LL FIND YOU AND...." I screamed myself awake, struggling to flail and run from the horrible dream only to find myself held in place tightly.

"Ah... There we are, welcome back Mr. Times. I apologize, that tranquillizer can cause nasty nightmares as a side-effect, very effective however. A pleasure to meet you at last..."

I shuddered on the... table? My eyes refocused enough to roll around and take in what I could frantically. I was strapped to some kind of operating table... strong looking, grey straps held my naked forelegs down in front of me and some pulling proved my hindlegs were bound the same way behind me. Wherever I was, 'operating table' was the first thought because of how clean and bright it was, some very bright lights were aimed on me from above, the floor I could see in front of me was pristine white tiles and the surfaces nearby were gleaming stainless steel. I could see a lot of intact glass and reflections of brightly lit computer screens, blinking lights and dials, chemistry equipment, potions and vials of varying sizes and colors, it was like I woke up in a high tech hospital in the old world...

"M-Moondancer..." I croaked to the voice behind me, frustrated by my limited view preventing me from seeing the head of the Institute Biosciences division.

The familiar voice answered brightly as something probed and prodded my side, my flank still stung from where nightmare Grizz shot me. "Yes indeed! My it's refreshing to hear that name, you are a clever one Mr. Times. One moment, let me check these readings and we can be properly introduced.... there we are, now then here I am, Dr. Moondancer / Dala at your service!"

The cream colored mare that walked into my field of view at the head of the table smiled and posed fetchingly, adjusting her glasses with a coy smile and fluffing her... wings? It was Alicorn Angel Moondancer... My mind blanked staring up at the beautiful mare over me, it was a life-size version of the joke toy Twilight had sent Moondancer so long ago. She wore a fancy lab coat over the cartoon heroine sailor outfit, but she was a perfect, living version of the toy I gave Glitter. A stylish copy of Moondancer, the same height as the others I had seen, her rose mane meticulously groomed and styled, obviously loaded with a lot more sex appeal and a pair of wings to go with the outfit, but the same as the other synth versions I had seen before.

"W-Wha?"

She tittered to herself and took a curtsy, trotting in a circle coquettishly. "I thought you'd like this body, put you more at ease for our introduction, you do like alicorns after all. Plus I like showing off, I put a lot of work into this model you know!"

"A synth... you made an Alicorn Angel Moondancer synth? I want to talk to the real Moondancer!" Anger started creeping in my voice as I puzzled it out, I clenched my eyes and tried to blast the robot in front of me to cinders with my lightning, only to be rewarded with a negative sounding beep from something at my horn.

The alicorn synth tsked and waved her hoof in a tut-tut gesture, sauntering down the table beside me and tracing down my bare side with a wing tip. "Now, now, naughty buck, none of that. You are talking to the real Moondancer anyway, this isn't a synth following my orders, I'm controlling this one directly, see?"

Hiking her lab coat and charcoal skirt up let her wiggle her moon and stars cutie marked flank right in my face, giggling to herself as she tapped on a keyboard out of sight. "You're controlling it? A-Alright... well now that we're introduced, why did you capture me? What do you want? WHERE'S MY STABLE?!"

She had moved out of sight and was humming to herself, working at several different areas nearby as she talked by the sound. "I tried to tell you, I want what you want! I'm just trying to help, finish what I started with Twilight, make it work right! I do wish you had accepted my earlier invitation, I had to be a little forceful... but Vega was determined to kill you! I finally convinced him to let me handle it in exchange for helping him with his own little project, you are a perfect test for both that and what I'm hoping for with Miss Evergreen and her sisters.

As for your Stable... well, we'll have time to discuss that. Though I don't have any of the third shift ponies before you ask, your family are out of my ability to grant you for the moment. We may find a way to give you what you want however, a topic for another day when you're less upset hmm? For now let's focus on Arcane Science! Our grand experiment and the alicorns we both appreciate."

"Experiment!? What are you talking about Moondancer? What are you going to do to the alicorns?"

"Why give them what they want of course! In.... limited supply... They've helped me gather a great deal of research data. I see why Twilight decided to focus on only unicorns initially now, with the war she needed to make it work as soon as possible. The 'Goddess' Trixie looks to have followed Twilight's formulation, her children are all derived from unicorns as well and incomplete. Solving the I.M.P. for all varieties of ponies has been a much more challenging problem.

I have the process for creating my own loyal mutants down now and am ready to proceed. Making them sexless has ensured I don't lose control of them, to move forward however I need to show some success to Evergreen and the others. Providing proof I can create a male will not only keep them in line, it should sway all the holdouts to my side easily! So long as I control the only source of males, they'll do whatever I wish.

I can't try it out on Evergreen's stallion though, on the small chance something went wrong she'd never forgive me. I've worked out most of the problems involving radiation, but the best option is a subject where that is not a factor. I'd try it on some of my personal stock of preserved... subjects, but I'm running quite low and they're pristine and valuable.

You though, you are perfect! You're a Stable 111 pony, the only radiation concerns are what you've encountered in the wasteland since leaving your Stable. You're from before the war, so no generations of genetic damage or inbreeding found in most Stables by this point. I have all of your medical records as well which helps a great deal, you're a unicorn born of a unicorn and a pegasus, grandparents are all also of the same type as the parents, you're already genetically balanced between the two.

Plus you are famously enamored with an alicorn! You should welcome the opportunity, serve as an excellent example to the others and neatly head off any further public relations problems Vega keeps nagging about by being made more cooperative."

A cold sweat sprung up on my coat as she cooed and tickled my hindquarters playfully and I strained against my bonds. "Y-You can't test it out on me! H-How about just making me compatible with Jade huh? You can do that too right, that would help the alicorns and make them happy!"

Moondancer sashayed her way around the table to my face again, waving a wing absently to a refrigerated glass case set in the wall, a shelf full of pale pink vials with a rainbow sheen. "Compatibility? Pssh! I told those mares, compatibility is a parlor trick, I solved that problem quite some time ago. Making breeding viable for them only makes them less controllable though, if they can mate and produce offspring with any old pony, what do they need me for? No, we're going for the brass ring Mr. Times, you and I are going to solve the I.M.P., you'll be the first of a new breed! Isn't that exciting?"

"NO! Moondancer please, don't do this. You knew the things you were doing were wrong, you were going to change remember? Experimenting on ponies against their will, changing them into those things you made, it's wrong! Twilight Sparkle wouldn't want you to do this! I'd do anything for Jade, I'll even help you go about this a better way, but I don't want to be turned into one of those... long horned mutants of yours, or be some kind of failed and even more twisted monster! Please, you know better than this Moondancer, don't..."

A conflicted look crossed her pretty features and she cocked her head shaking it off, leaning down to kiss the tip of my horn and smile sweetly. "But it's already done Mr. Times, just a little jab in the flank is all, much easier to get the tricky dosage right with a shot rather than having you drink it. Don't you worry, I'll take good care of you and you'll thank me when it's over! We'll discuss whether we need to even bother implanting a compliance regulator once the process is finished. In the meantime we have a week to... get to know each other better, I'm sure I can help fill the time for you pleasantly. Think about it and we'll talk more soon, for now you need your rest!"

I stared at the synth in horror as it smiled and nodded to what sounded like a sliding Stable door somewhere behind me, a pair of pale Gen 1 synths came in and flanked the table I was strapped to, wheeling it around to the exit. Gaping at the synthetic alicorn, I saw it slump and shake to itself, its manner and expression changing as it left my view.

Once she was out of sight the stinging at my flank crashed on me like a wave, I screamed and bucked on the table, strained to blast anything in front of my horn with electric death until my head hurt, finally shuddering and sobbing as the implacable robots wheeled me down the sterile halls.

My flank itched, the maddening feeling of... wrongness under my skin spreading slowly as I clenched my eyes tightly against the tears and thought of Jade and Glitter.

It was already done...

Bzzzt!

"Ow..."

Bzzzt!

"Ow..."

Bzzzt!

"Ow..."

Touching the glowing pink field acting as the bars of my cell gave an uncomfortable little shock each time my hoof made contact. I had mainly settled on morosely poking at it anyway just to feel something, anything other than that stunned emptiness that filled me since being dumped here.

It was a clean and comfortable cell, a simple metal framed bed, stainless steel sink and toilet, sterile walls and floors and bright lights. It was still a prison as each touch of the magical barrier keeping me in demonstrated, but it was a nice prison.

Staring blankly through the pink tinted view of the hall outside, I had absently watched the activity of passing ponies and robots. Lots of the white plastic skinned Gen 1 synths moved to and fro down the halls, carrying boxes, sweeping and cleaning, a couple in the Institute's white composite armor seemed more like guards on patrol.

A variety of ponies passed by as well, a few of which were different versions of Moondancer, but most looked like normal old ponies wearing clean and fancy collared lab coats or jumpsuits. I wondered if they were all synths, or if the Institute had living ponies as well, ponies working for the Institute willingly, living their lives here. Real or synth, none of them had talked to me when I had tried, so now I just watched and poked the shield separating us.

Free of the straps that held me to the table they used to wheel me in here, I had first frantically taken stock of my situation, trying to find some escape. I reached up and felt some kind of bulky ring around the base of my horn, the source of the beep every time I tried to use magic, no matter how I pulled it wouldn't budge though, leaving me completely cut off from any arcane ability I had managed to cultivate.

At least it was warm enough in here, my hat and coat, bags and all possessions other than my pip-buck had been taken, sitting here naked could have been uncomfortably chilly too. My pip-buck was even still working, there wasn't any kind of interface or controls in here, so I couldn't hack my way out. The arcano-tech device looked sadly empty when I swiped through my non-existent inventory, the radio couldn't pick up any stations except for some automated classical music channel.

The map function had been filling in the details of my environment as always, but couldn't place me anywhere in the Commonwealth when I tried to zoom out. I was also unable to bring up any of the list of locator tags I had stored in the device, I started with Jade and Glitter, eventually moving down to anyone out of desperation, but nothing was available. If I couldn't track them, they couldn't track me...

Most worrisome of all was the medical system, the pip-buck knew something was wrong and listed a variety of angry alerts, detailing how my health status was impacted without being able to identify the problem or do anything about it. At the moment I had a very slight fever, elevated blood pressure and heart rate and a few blinking red warnings about organ damage...

According to the time and date on the pip-buck, I had been here more than 6 hours, it must be dark outside by now. I wondered and worried where the others were, if they were ok, how upset they were. Had Zed gone to meet them and tell them what happened? Or had he found his brother and that mirror he wanted instead? I had tried to avoid shooting any zebras during my chase through the library, though by the end there was no telling what I was firing at or if I hit anything.

Did Umbra and Stormy get away? Umbra could tell Jade what happened if Zed hadn't, hopefully one way or another she'd know. Val would kill me for ending up like this, I sent her away promising to be careful and meet back up to handle things together, instead I did something stupid and got caught. Did Glitter know something was wrong yet? I hoped she was still happy and playing with her new friends, even if they were a pack of thieves. When word did get back to her eventually it would only hurt her, better she was still happy right now. Wondering where they all were, if they were alright and what they'd be doing now, just made me feel worse, powerless... I couldn't do anything for any of them, I couldn't even help myself.

Bzzzt!

"Ow..."

Bzzzt!

"Oh for fuck's sake, stop doing that already!!" A mare's annoyed shout echoed in the hall from nearby, making me stop poking the shield in surprise and look around for anypony out there.

"Hello? Is anypony there? Help!"

After a moment the voice grumbled back from my left down the hall. "Help how, I'm in the same boat as you genius! Next cell down, poking that stupid shield won't do anything but keep pissing me off, give it a rest and let me pout in peace."

"You're a prisoner too? There's gotta be a way outta here somehow, we can escape!"

"Yeah good luck with that... I haven't seen one and they've kept me here a couple days now, we're stuck alright! Can't believe they did this to me, after everything I've done... just shut up and leave me alone." The angry mare raged nearby, settling into a sullen silence.

"Come on, somepony to talk to is at least better than sitting here alone. Why'd they take you captive? How'd you end up here?" Even this grumpy mare was preferable to silence filled by my own worried thoughts, so I waited hopefully for a reply.

Going back to poking the shield finally elicited an exasperated hiss. "Alright! Just stop doing that! Double crossing asshole... said he was going to turn me into a real princess, made it sound great... then those things came to pick me up... I don't want to be one of those! He said a princess, not some monster! Been holding me here since, said they had to test it first, they don't even know if it works!"

Considering I was the test, I thought about comforting her with the knowledge she still had a week according to Moondancer. It sounded like she was cooperating with the Institute up to a certain point though, lowering my desire to offer much consolation to whoever this was. "You went along with them? Were you working with them?"

"Not that it's any of your business... but yeah, a little... not the crazy mare running this place, somepony else. I know when I've been played though, asshole's trying to use me! ME! Even gloated about hurting my snuggleboo! That's alright, I'll bide my time, eventually I'll get out of here and be in a position to make them pay for this!" Hearing the depths of hate in her voice, I thought that might not entirely be a boast, she sounded like a mare who spent a lot of time thinking about getting even. Though hearing 'snuggleboo' spoken with such vehemence was kind of jarring.

"Are you a Stable pony?" I asked, playing a hunch and trying to steer her back to less dark topics.

"Yeah.... I was... How'd you know?" She answered with a guarded tone, thankfully distracted from thoughts of vengeance.

"Just a guess. She said she had another project after she tested it, makes sense it'd be another Stable pony, we're good guinea pigs apparently... So which one are you from? I'm from 111."

There was a long pause, interrupted by a hiss of a sliding door opening down the hall followed by hoofsteps ringing off the polished floors. The mare next door hissed back before she started shouting at whoever was out there. "Finally! Dinner, only passable thing here. HEY! HEY YOU! You let me out of here this instant! I demand to speak with Vega! You can't do this!"

I heard a few beeps and clicks outside, something sliding across the tiled floor between my fellow prisoner's screams, then a few more beeps and her voice cut off mid shout. My heart sped and my muscles tensed at the hoofsteps resuming and approaching my own cell, feeding time meant opening that shield, a chance to escape!

Seeing Alicorn Angel Moondancer appear at my door floating a tray of food caught me by surprise, looking even more like the toy version without the lab coat over the costume. Surely Moondancer didn't bother feeding her prisoners herself did she? Any hopes at escape were put down when the synth alicorn tapped at the unseen control console outside, causing a rectangular hole just big enough for the tray to fit through to open at the bottom of the barrier.

A tray of amazingly fresh looking apples, carrots, a muffin and a pristine bottle of Sparkle Cola slid through the gap before it closed again, leaving me to stare at it suspiciously and eye Moondancer. The synth gave a shaky smile and gestured to it invitingly, the voice that spoke up wasn't quite Moondancer's though, something about the tone and feeling behind it was different.

"Go ahead, it's all safe I promise! Biosciences provides all the food for the Institute, our apples are probably better than any you've had since you were a foal in the old world. A-Are you feeling alright? Do you need anything?" She seemed almost apologetic and kind, something was very off here...

"To leave, an antidote for your potion, my family, my Stable, your head... want me to keep going? What'd you do to my neighbor out there?"

She flinched under my burning glare, glancing back to the other cell she had come from and waving her hooves defensively. "Nothing! She can be quite loud during meals, I just muted her cell so we could talk. I should clear up your confusion, I am not Dr. Dala... she is not controlling me as before. I suppose you could call me Angel instead, in honor of the inspiration for my model."

"Sooo... you're just a synth? Moondancer can control you? Like just take over any time she wants? How does that work?" I sniffed at the food and watched... Angel... curiously, I couldn't help being interested in the topic of the robotic ponies and how they worked.

With me no longer quite regarding her as Moondancer herself, the synth seemed to relax and brighten, lifting her short skirt away to reveal a blank flank beneath. "The heads of the Institute are able to interface with any synth on the network, possess us like a spirit and experience the world through our bodies, or relive our memories. I am one of Dr. Dala's favored models so she often... uses me... I have been assigned to care for you while you're our guest, put you at ease as you like this form.

To be perfectly honest Dr. Dala would be pleased were I to seduce you as well, you are one of her favorite subjects to observe lately and she would experience the memory herself. I tried to explain to the doctor how unlikely that was though, she does not understand relationships well but I do, from what I've seen you would not be unfaithful to the mare you love would you?"

"Er... no... not happening."

Angel nodded primly and shrugged, "Just as I thought, Dr. Dala only likes watching certain aspects of your relationship. She would have known better if she paid attention to the rest. Just had to get that out of the way. Enjoy your meal and get your rest Mr. Times, I'll return in the morning so the doctor can run some tests, we can talk again then. Oh, do be sure to take all the vitamins on your tray, I arranged them myself!"

She gave an unsure smile and waved goodbye, trotting quickly down the hall, pausing briefly to unmute my neighbors cell and fill the hall with angry yelling until she left. I sighed and fumbled at the food she left, forced to clumsily make do without my magic. Munching on a bite of the admittedly perfect apple, I eyed the line of multicolored pills on the corner of the tray suspiciously.

'Arranged them herself', as if putting them in a straight line leading to the muffin was worth making a fuss over. The only arranging I could see was how the different colors were set in order, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and purple pills of varying shapes and sizes, a bit like a tiny Rainbow Trail from the streets of Trotson...

"Follow the Rainbow Trail..." I croaked sullenly, moving my hoof down the train of vitamins to the muffin and lifting it to take a bite.

A scrap of paper floated out from beneath the muffin, nearly making me knock over my drink scrambling to catch it and awkwardly unfold it with just my hooves. It was tissue thin and had absorbed moisture from the warm muffin, a single word scrawled in black ink that was already smudged;

WAIT

As I stared at the fragile, hidden message, my pip-buck decided to chime in with another display of bizarre behavior;

Mission Updated: Road to Freedom

Objective--
--Wait
--Follow the Rainbow Trail

"What the what?!" I goggled at the weird bit of technology on my hoof and banged it against the floor, but the new mission entry didn't go anywhere. Its tendency to volunteer what it thought I should be doing was strange already, usually there was more sense to it than this though.

Unfortunately I couldn't think of anything better... I returned to distractedly munching on my meal, adding the cryptic note to a bite of muffin to destroy it just in case. I licked the chain of pills off the tray to spare myself trying to pick up any of the minuscule vitamins without telekinesis, washing them down with a swig of Sparkle Cola and staring out the magic field keeping me here.

"Wait... like I can do much else..."

New Perk Added!------------------------------------

Chem Resistant----------
---All the rush without the hassle! You're 50% less likely to get addicted to chems and gain +25 poison resistance! Sure to come in useful the next time somepony shoots you full of darts!

Quest Perk Added!------------------------------------------

Institute Impelled Metamorphosis Potion- Injection-------------
---One way or the other, you're now a guinea pig for the Institute! Without skilled medical attention and the spell to purge taint cast within the first 12 hours, the condition will progress. For now, you lose 10 health and magic points and feel mildly sick!