Discovered Location: Egret Tours Marina

Blinking away the text in my vision, I scanned the shores of the river we had been following and spotted the source of the alert from my pip-buck's well informed navigation system. A concrete dock was just below, the rusting fuel station sign above a walk up diner on the central pier, a crumbling workshop and huge, barn like dry dock to one side, a few ruined buildings to the other.

Taking a moment to make a wide loop around the structure and scan it carefully in the moonlight, I was heartened to see E.F.S. didn't show anything. That along with the weakening, sleepy grip of my daughter slumping on my back decided me and I called to my companions as I started my descent.

"Ok, this place looks safe and we've gone far enough, we'll rest here until morning, then into the city."

Once the order was given, Val easily pulled ahead and did a much faster circuit of the ruins, flitting from building to building, skimming the water lapping at the boat ramp leading to the dry dock, before bursting out of the upper windows, making a careful inspection at our chosen haven for the night.

I briefly wondered whether having her bodyguarding skills questioned by the alicorn Tigerlily we were escaping was behind the very thorough display, but chose to let her go and landed with a stumbling canter down the cracked concrete dock. I winced at my inexpert touchdown making the foal on my back give a groggy whine, her sleep further interrupted by the large purple alicorn thumping to the dock beside me with a heavy thump.

"Nnnn.... mm're we t-there yet d-daddy?" Glitter shivered on my back, sending my head craning back to try tucking her blanket around her better, noting with concern how tightly she clutched it already and the glistening line of snot down her muzzle.

"We're... somewhere, where we're stopping for the night anyway sweetie. Go back to sleep if you can, we'll have a fire as soon as we can and warm you up, just hold on a minute."

Watching my breath puff out in chilly little clouds as I spoke, I berated myself again. I kept forgetting about the cold... I just didn't feel it the same way anymore, so it was hard to tell what was too much for the little filly without some other kind of evidence besides what my mutated senses reported.

The drizzly rain had blown off before we left the Seaside Shoals Yacht Club and the night sky was clearing, but those thin, wispy clouds moving rapidly above must be pushed along by a cold front. Trying to remind myself about the concerns of normal ponies, (and worrying how they seemed to be fading away to a dim memory for me...)

I drew in a deep breath and mentally cataloged that crisp, blustery smell. Winter... that's what winter smelled and felt like... pegasus weather magic could tell me these things, but until I learned what they meant it was hard to keep track of It was sure to be important soon too, Hearth's Warming was only a month or so away according to my pip-buck. It had already been nearly two months since I left the Stable!?

Worriedly trying to help warm her from the trip, I managed to force my uncooperative wings into standing up when I wanted them to for once, which they of course didn't want to do... More than happy to spring straight up when it was embarrassing, not so much when it was useful... Still, they did as told and the dark feathers were warm, giving her a bit more protection as she snuggled fitfully against my mane.

They were joined by a much larger lavender wing curling around her, Swan both concerned for her niece and taking the opportunity to lean down and nuzzle with a whisper. "Stopping's good Fast, niece Glitter looks cold and tired. Let's find somewhere good to warm her up, then we can go play!"

Ugh... looking up into Swan's twinkling blue-violet eyes wearily and noticing all the heart shaped sparkles, I sighed and figured we better get a few things up front. As far as the purple alicorn was concerned, she was here on vacation and anxious to get started, especially after the fiasco of Jamocha Plains and her sisters nearly dragging me away for just the kind of fun she wanted.

"Er... Swan... Let's just get some rest and take care of Glitter tonight, we'll have plenty of time to play... later... Did Ivy tell you anything about umm... h-how we've been handling it?"

She got a distinctly pouty look and tossed her long pink mane, giving a snort and answering sullenly. "Sister Ivy said you're stubborn, that I have to go on a 'date' thing first, didn't we do that already though? We fought those mean Gunner ponies and took a trip together, that counts doesn't it?"

"N-Not quite, no Swan... Look, it's not about hitting the bare minimums and moving on, I call it a date, but it's more... getting closer first. I like you Swan, I really do, we're friends. But I don't know you very well either, I want to spend time together to fix that, before we do any er... playing. Besides, Jade has to give the go ahead, and I'm sad right now after saying goodbye to Ivy."

That pout only deepened as she tilted her head, leaning closer to eye the upturned screen of my pip-buck, Ivy's mark blinking steadily at Jamocha Plains still, safe with her sisters. "But I want to play, it's my turn, I came all this way and did what you wanted! Why do I have to wait? Why are you sad? Sister Ivy is going to do as the mother wished, she's having a foal, going home to tell the others. Everypony should be happy!"

Trying to hush her rising whine, I was grateful to see Val land at the end of the pier and moved to join her gently, trying not to jostle Glitter any more than I had to and answering in a tired whisper. "We are happy Swan, but we were both sad too... I care about Ivy as more than just a friend, I only play with mares I feel that way about first, er... I'm trying to anyway. When somepony you feel that way about goes away, you feel sad. I-It's complicated... just not tonight ok?"

She didn't look convinced... at all... Instead she huffed and grumbled, trotting along behind me and pouting sullenly as we met Val. The griffon smirked down at me, but refrained from any teasing with the filly hidden by my wings waiting, rubbing her furry shoulders as she shrugged back to the ruins, reminding me she felt the cold too.

"Looks mostly clear boss, tour buildin' yonder's got some crazy squatter you might wanna yap at, but her little claw mark thingy is green." Val waved out to the shattered storefronts and small homes, her claw lingering on a two story brick structure facing the water, the storefront and counter exposed, but more sheltered rooms within clearly visible by the soft glow of a terminal.

"Right then, let's go up there and take a look, maybe we'll get lucky and they have a fire going already that they'll share."

Drawing her huge pistol, Val clucked and rolled her eyes, leading the way to a sturdy blue door to the rear rooms of the building from the street. "Wouldn't count on it, sounds a lil' nutty... see for yerself, just eh... stay back a step. Oy! Crazy Granny! You gots a fire in there? Feel like bein' friendly, do a little barter maybe?"

In response, a gruff, elderly voice screeched back, definitely not friendly, but not bloodthirsty so doing pretty well for the wasteland. "Go on! Told ya to get! Leave! Quick, 'fore I malfunction er somethin' and blow yer brains out!"

My eyebrows shot up at 'malfunction' and Val winced when she caught it, was it a robot in there? Something that needed fixing? I opened my mouth to say something, only to have Val clamp it shut with her claws, giving an indulgent sigh as she grumbled. "Yeah, yeah... if it is some tin can, at least they're feisty... Hey! Why not open up! My boss is a big nerd if yer some broken down robot or somethin' in there. C'mon! Gots a chilly filly out here!"

The door swung open sharply, the double barrelled shotgun on the other side met instantly by Val's pistol on the other. The greying red-orange mare behind it looked completely unconcerned however, waving it back and forth and giving a raspy cry, the shadowed old eyes under her battered cap widening when they spotted the filly in question. "Filly!? Go! Get her outta here! Hurry before I end up killin' her and... gurk! g-go...ack! n-now..."

The old mare's weapon clattered to the leaf strewn sidewalk just as I got concerned at 'killin' her', brought up short from asking just what the fuck she meant by that by her clutching her chest and stumbling back, the color rapidly draining from her face only drawing attention to the way her lips turned blue.

The bright purple glow coming from the same direction as Swan's predatory growl left me struggling to keep up, looking from the suddenly dragon eyed alicorn prowling forward, to the elderly pony suffering some kind of... heart attack? I could hear it lurching in her chest from here...

From Swan's scowling words, I started to suspect one was connected to the other... "You will not hurt niece..."

"Swan? Umm.... S-Swan? Hey! SWAN! Stop!"

Quick as it started, the old mare's medical emergency went away the second Swan's horn extinguished and she turned with an unsure look, still keeping one wary eye on the gasping mare on the floor as Val kicked her weapon away and covered her with her own sneer. "What was you sayin' there nutburger? Jus' wanna be sure about it 'fore I blow yer brains out..."

"Why did you stop me? She said she would..." Swan whined back, the narrow slits of her eyes widening and becoming safely round again.

"Calm down! Both of you! She sounded worried about that happening, not threatening! At least I really hope I'm right, for your sake Ma'am..." I hissed back at the two of them, fighting back my own impulse to jump to the same conclusion to call for peace like Jade would want, marveling at how Deliverer had appeared at my side like magic without my knowledge. Wonderful... now I was the voice of reason...

Ignoring both Val and Swan's frustrated protests, I watched as the strange mare choked and thumped her chest, the uneven thumping of her heart settling out as I listened. "N-Not safe fer little ones, I-I'm a synth dammit! Any second them Institute bastards could send some crazy signal, hit some button... or I'll see polka dots and them my programmin' will kick in and... just get her away!"

Even recovering from nearly having her heart literally stopped in her chest, the anguish and concern for the foal -not hate- was very clear in her strangled voice. 'Be Dark...' muttered in my mind at being denied, but I politely told it to shut the hell up for once. Ivy was gone... I'd have to rely on dealing with that voice myself, and this mare wasn't threat to Glitter, 'Be Kind...'.

"Val, take Glitter and get a fire going in that apartment building up the street, there ought to be somewhere to get some rest in there."

The griffon's eyes narrowed at my wings lowering and fluffing near the sleeping filly shivering there, squawking at me incredulously. "But boss! She..."

"Let me talk to our company, I'm sure she won't be a problem and you need to get warmed up and take a break too. It'll be fine, I'll keep an eye on her."

Taking in my flat stare and implacable tone, Val seethed and kicked at the ground, gently taking Glitter in one free claw while the other kept her pistol trained on the gasping mare reaching her hooves. She was only a little sated when my magic reached out and broke down the fallen shotgun, swatting me with her tail as she turned in a huff and stomped away, muttering under her breath. "Bleedin' heart nonsense... Goofy Princess... I don't need no break dammit! Only cause'a the kid... get yerself shot dumbass... crazy old bitch..."

"Thank you Val! Now then... let's talk about you being a synth and why you think you'd hurt my daughter Ma'am, which I can assure you would be a very, very bad idea... My name's Fast by the way, sorry about your umm... heart... did you really do that Swan?"

Stamping her hoof hard enough to put cracks in the concrete, Swan snorted and kept glaring at the mare as I helped her up, answering in a petulant hiss. "Yes... She said she'd hurt niece Glitter... why can't I kill her?"

"N-Nearly did ya big galoot! Probably fer the best if ya did too! Just... a-alright young buck, if'n it'll make ya go away I'll tell ya. Name's Practice Daily, c'mon in I guess, is cold out here..." The elderly Ms. Daily shivered and stepped back into the firelight inside, scooping up her open shotgun with a crotchety grunt when offered to her.

I holstered my own pistol, moving to take a step to follow and stopped by a lot of purple feathers. Swan's wing formed a wall between us and she pouted over the appendage to me. "This is dumb... If she's a synth thing, killing her is fine. But do what you want I guess..."

Giving a groan, I sputtered on her long pink tail smacking me as well, facehoofing over my current conscious companions, I had two Vals... If anything, Swan was quicker to jump to lethal force after her years of experience being the terrifying guardian of Trinity Tower. Getting used to traveling with Swan instead of Ivy was going to be like night and day... eliciting a weary sigh as I whispered back.

"Thanks for humoring me then Swan, sorry. Synths can be alive though, and there's no way for us to tell if she really is one, so let's slow down before jumping right to the crushing her heart bit..."

She didn't sound convinced, but did raise her wing, following along as I entered the ramshackle rear half of the Egret Marina Tours.

Some bare effort towards comfort had been made in Ms. Daily's spartan home. Set up in the offices of the river tours business, a strategic hole had been knocked through the ceiling above a metal drum and the fire burning within, candles were scattered about for those lacking natural nightvision, visible in a room further back was a musty mattress covered in rotting blankets on the floor, and the elderly mare herself settled into a creaking office chair by the fire.

Pointing to a rusty file cabinet missing a couple drawers to show a collection of canned food and bottled water, Ms. Daily waved a hoof towards her supplies with a grumble. "Only hospitable ta offer guests somethin' I s'pose, long as that big mare don't gobble it all down... Who knows why they'd make us synths need ta eat, but I do thank ya very much..."

"We don't really need to eat that much Ma'am, so thanks anyway but save it. What makes you so sure you're a synth anyway?"

Practice shrugged and reached for a flask from her padded brown coat, muttering back. "As ya like then... Blackouts young'un, ponies I've hurt and don't remember... Why I live alone, and why you should get yerself an' that filly outta here! 'Fore one of them Institute bastards hits some button somewheres and... boom... one more dead fool."

"Can I kill her now Fast?" Swan growled back, the distinction between warning and threat lost on her.

Trying to keep this pleasant and continue, I sat on the threadbare carpet, scratching my head in thought. I wasn't sure why this was important to me, synths were a part of living in the Commonwealth and it had never bothered me so much. Of course that was before I was aware I was related to one of their creators...

That was assuming she really was one too, something I wasn't so sure of. "If you were one of those synths that isn't conscious of the orders they're acting on, I can pretty much assure you any 'button' would have been pressed already. The Institute doesn't like me that much, the feeling's mutual too."

I gave my wings a flap and pointed to Swan's much more obvious nature to demonstrate, waiting for the inevitable as the old pony squinted in the candlelight and got a good look. "Yer.. Yer both!? Y-Yer that pony on the radio... the crazy buck dressin' up like the comics? You ought'a know then! Those evil sons a bitches don't make no sense anyway, maybe they ain't hittin' the button just ta mess with ya, or me, or Luna knows!? They're insane, do whatever strikes their fancy, why else would they make m-me..."

Tears welled up in her eyes as her voice cracked, an ocean of regret and misery communicated clearly that I still had a hard time believing synths could copy, even knowing they could. Normal pony or synthetic one however, she was in a lot of pain and I felt a certain sense of ...responsibility now.

If Grandpa had a hoof in making the synths, he was to blame for all the real ones struggling to be free, and all the paranoia their existence bred in the hearts of the ponies of the Commonwealth. Either way, faced with it now that I knew I was related to that, I felt the need to atone, even if Grandpa didn't.

"Most synths I've met either don't know they are one, do know and are fine following orders, or do know and are ...alive, but in control of themselves. You might be one, but you might not be Ma'am, what happened to make you think you are one? What did they make you do?"

She slumped in her seat and a lot of fight seemed to go out of her, turning to stare into the flickering flames and sounding a million miles away. "W-When my daughter died... it was jus' me an my grandson Mattock. Got us a place on with a farm down the river, hard work... nasty plants, but kept us goin'... One night I'm on watch, and I... I... I thought I fell asleep, it's just b-blank... O-One minute I'm sittin' there, rifle on my legs... starin' out at the marsh, an' next..."

"Next thing I know, gunshot snapped me outta it... an' little Matty's at my hooves, a-an' there's blood everywhere... O-Others come runnin' out at the shot, but it's just us... no raiders, no Gunners, just me an... a-an my little buck, those little hooves what hugged me... an he was just gone... Gone an' it was all my fault! Me an' the damn Institute... ya got no idea what that's like!"

At the tearful admission, Swan's horn lit back up, flickering away when I approached and hugged the sobbing mare. 'Be Kind...' The thought of being in her shoes... of waking up to find Glitter that way... thinking I had done it... I cried with her, synth or not, ignoring Swan's annoyed snort and trying to offer some comfort.

"I don't... I'm sorry. I know what it's like to hate the Institute though, and to do things you don't remember, and to lose family because of them. You don't know it was you though, or even if you really are a synth and they made you. You loved him right? You'd never hurt him?"

The raspy cry as she clutched back tightly was like a knife to the heart, a dim, desperate hope buried deep in her words. "N-Never! I loved that buck! O-Or I thought I did... p-probably fake memories they made me feel an..."

At that I held her back, looking straight into her watery eyes and shaking my head forcefully. "Love isn't fake, even if they programmed you, you felt it, you still feel it. You love your grandson as much as I love my daughter. Maybe it was someone else, o-or they took you over, or it was an accident, but you love him and that's what matters Ma'am. He knew that."

Getting it off her chest seemed to deflate her, change her from old to ancient before my eyes as she sniffled and croaked back. "B-But he's dead... and I'm not. T-Tried so many times ta end it, but their damn programmin' won't let me... An' if I'm not a synth, that just means it was all me an' I'm too much of'a coward ta kill myself!"

Wiping my own eyes, I sighed sadly. "I don't think your grandson would want that though. I don't know what really happened, or if you're a synth or not, but there are things you can do still, instead of killing yourself when you don't know either. There's a group in Trotson called the Railroad, I bet they could tell if you were a synth or not. My friend here's sisters in Unityville could even read your mind, maybe they could see what happened? Or you could try to move on and make up for what happened, the Minutemares always need good ponies, maybe you could help others? There's more you could do besides just sit here alone and think the worst."

"W-What if the worst is true though? If I am and they made me kill my own grandson...." Practice asked in a fearful hush, the growl of 'Be Dark...' offering an immediate answer.

"If you are a synth and they made you do that, I'd try to kill all of them before yourself."

That was something even Swan agreed with, stamping a hoof and nodding earnestly. "They are bad and should pay, you could make them as much as you can, then they'd kill you for you."

Her next, reticent question made me worry for her more and hope Swan wouldn't chime in again. "And... and if I'm not? If there's no excuse... i-it was just me?"

"You'd have to know first, then decide what to do about it I guess. If it was me... I'd probably do the same as you have, kill myself or hide if I couldn't. But I'd find out first, and I don't think my daughter would want me to... your grandson would probably want the same for you."

Watching her forcefully wipe her eyes and put on a little of her earlier grumpiness like a mask, I was glad to see consideration and gratitude in her bloodshot gaze. "P-Probably so... I'll think on it Mr. Shrouded Stallion, thanks fer takin' the time and risk fer an old mare. S-Still advise ya to take that filly of yers and get, but g-go on and get her warmed up anyway, take some firewood if ya please. Foals that ages need their rest too... Just be gone in the mornin'!"

Accepting the dismissal, I floated a few branches of dry wood from beside her barrel and shoved Swan out the door ahead of me, turning back as I pushed it shut and speaking through the closing gap. "We will be, thanks Ms. Daily. I'm sorry."

The smoke puffing up from down the block made Val easy enough to find, even though it was coming from the third floor of the broken apartment, I kept plodding down the street, lost in thought. The Institute and their experiments... So pervasive and feared, they could make normal ponies afraid they were synths and didn't know it, or leave their own creations so addled and riddled with guilt over what they were forced to do.

I wasn't sure which was worse if Ms. Daily did find out one way or the other, synth or pony, that was a mare who had suffered, in part because of my Grandfather.

The loud stomp behind me pulled me out of my brooding with a start, spinning back and looking up to an angry Swan snorting puffs of breath from her nose. "We should have killed her... She pointed a gun at niece Glitter and you, but you were nice instead! Why?"

I really didn't understand why she seemed quite so upset, but recognized that fury in her voice and paused, answering carefully. "She didn't mean any harm Swan, I felt bad for her and ...r-responsible. Jade would have wanted us to be nice."

Rather than soothe her, that just looked to make her madder... The already shrunken pupils of her blue-violet eyes flashed into slits for an instant and she stuck her nose up in a huff, spreading her wings and launching herself to the hole riddled roof of the large boat house across the street.

"Er..."

I could see her up there... plopping herself down at the peak of the roof above, her back turned and wings raised, sneaking little peeks down before sticking her nose up again, leaving me thoroughly confused looking up to her. I suddenly realized just how used to being around a telepath I had gotten. Ivy knew what I meant even if I screwed it all up by opening my mouth, and I usually had a better idea what she was thinking in turn.

Certainly clearer than the complete mystery mumbling to herself up there now... Ponies had always been a mystery to me, and fillies were a mystery, printed on a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, wrapped in an enigma and locked in a puzzle box...

The bundle of branches I had grabbed flew up the street in my magic as I went the other direction, fluttering up to the roof warily and landing a few feet away. "Umm... Swan? Something wrong? I know it's inconvenient and can be annoying, but Jade really would want us to be better. W-We'll go find plenty of raiders or monsters you can kill soon I'm sure..."

"I don't care..." drifted back to me sullenly and I could feel my brain beginning to overheat trying to keep up. Yes... she was definitely mad about something... Though actually asking if she was only got an even less convincing, "No I'm not..."

"Nnnn... Ok, something's wrong... You're one of those ponies where you ask if something's wrong and they say no, but you can tell something actually is definitely wrong... Even I can tell and I suck at this stuff, could you help me out and tell me Swan? I'm really horrible at figuring these things out when I can't read your mind. I can't believe I actually miss unity, but I guess I got used to Ivy just..."

Swan gave a graceful spin and wheeled on me there, an angry, wounded pout on her features as she tromped forward and leaned down into my face. "Sister Ivy isn't here, sister Jade isn't here, I'm here! You won't play, you keep moping, and you treated that crazy pony nicer than me!"

"W-Wha?"

I gave ground and skittered backwards in confusion, running into the bent weathervane at the center of the roof with a squeak as Swan kept advancing, that hurt scowl deepening as she built up steam. "I came when you wrote! I was excited you picked me and wanted to see me again, I did lots of stuff to make you happy so you wouldn't run away again! But you didn't notice anyway, too busy whining and being sad about sister Ivy, or doing what sister Jade wants, even being nice and huggy with that old mare, but not me?!"

Was she.... jealous?! Maybe that was too strong, but she sounded hurt and neglected... True I had been moping and kept talking about Ivy with her parting so fresh for me, had I been upsetting her? Not paying her enough attention? "I... Swan I'm sorry... I didn't think, I have stuff on my mind I just found out and... No, no excuses, I really am sorry. I didn't think about how you felt, er... I seem to be bad about that lately."

"Yes you are! I did what you wanted to make you happy, why aren't you happy to see me? I waited and learned things and got pretty with Miss Cocoa! O-Or I was... until all the fighting anyway! Y-You ran away before... So I even did what you wanted and made myself tiny!" A little of that anger cooled and took on a note of longing, we had been rushed and I realized I had been quiet and ...broody... since meeting Swan, I had been hurting her this whole time?

Her torn pink skirt ruffled in the breeze and I saw how clean all the non-bloody portions were now, spotted a bit of lace underneath she must have acquired in Jamocha Plains waiting, could see some care had gone into the long, frazzled pink mane fluttering against the sky. Not to mention the question of her being normal sized that I had mostly disregarded as convenient, but even Ivy said she never saw Swan this way. She did that for me?

"Swan, I am happy to see you, I really am. I should have paid you more attention and noticed more, I didn't mean for you to go to so much trouble on my account. Or do anything you didn't want to for sure, I just thought you were smaller because it was easier. Do you not like it?"

"No... I don't. B-But you told Umbra a 'less smashy Swan'... so I thought you wanted... Didn't you?" The rest of Swan's display of fury fizzled out and she looked down at herself uncertainly, now that I was really paying attention, I noticed that look of discomfort and dissatisfaction at what she saw before looking back hopefully.

"Er... actually I was surprised to see you like that. I didn't want you to do anything that made you uncomfortable because you thought that's what I wanted though. Why did you think that?"

"The last time I saw you, you did that nice lip thing I liked, but then got scared of me and ran away... I like other ponies being scared of me sometimes, but I didn't like that... Y-You ran from me because I was too big, so I thought... t-this would make you happy and you'd do it again." Swan's ears drooped and that sad, hopeful note in her voice made me wince at my thoughtlessness.

Lip thing... Kiss... I had kissed Swan, then I had indeed run away... Granted I had kissed her to escape her overeager, smothering grasp when she held me like a captive kitten, but I had kissed her and it obviously meant a lot to her. I hadn't even really considered how she felt about it, what she had been thinking since then, what she thought when I wrote her or agreed to be with her to begin with. Hell, she wasn't even in Goodneighbor when I told Umbra I'd agree to her as one of the three I compromised with her on, Swan got it secondhoof...

Well, I could try to make up for it anyway, fluttering up to her level hesitantly and wrapping my forelegs around her neck, giving her an anxious, warm kiss that was different with lips that couldn't smack my whole face at once, but just as nice either way. When I pulled away, I was relieved to see a soft smile curling her muzzle and her full cheeks turning pink.

"Swan, I'm sorry, forgive me for being rude and distracted. I like you how you are, however you want to be. I didn't run from you because I was scared of you... er... a little worried at the time, but I was running from all of your sisters too, not just you. When I told Umbra that... I meant less smashy as in... er... p-practicalities and all... Stuff like being able to get into buildings for one. I should have asked about it before though, instead of being mopey and wrapped up in my own problems."

She gave a nervous little whinny and fluffed her wings, holding a hoof to her lips happily and murmuring back. "Yes you should have... So you wouldn't be mad or scared of me if I umm... were like normal? Would you play with me?"

"I promise, that's the Swan I got to know anyway and I like her. Being able to wrap my hooves around you and give you a more traditional kiss is nice too, but what you want is what's important. If being that way makes you happy, that's what I want. We'll er... figure out n-not smashing me d-during ummm play... later... Though after Virescent, you're not quite as daunting."

"Sister Virescent?" That surprised her into blinking away some of that creeping worry, tilting her head curiously at the mention of her green sister.

"Oh, yeah... Heh, no telepathy... Not that that's a bad thing! Sorry! Just have to get back in the habit of actually talking to communicate. We ran into Virescent and she reeeeally overdid it on radiation, she was bigger than you and... w-well we didn't do anything, r-really... but she came close. That was a little scary, but not entirely, and you're lots nicer and gentler than her."

Seeing a wide, genuine smile light her face up felt better, her chortling, snorting laughter infectious as she snickered to herself. "Sister Virescent! Bigger than me!? She's a lightweight Fast, she never indulged! I would have liked to see that! Did she go on a rampage?"

"Maaaaybe a little one..."

"Ha! She always made fun of me when I told her it was harder than it looked! That's funny! So... It's ok? I can stop being so small? I don't like it..." Swan's hearty laughter tapered off as her eyes flicked down to herself again, she really seemed uncomfortable for some reason.

"Don't do things you don't like just to please me Swan, nopony's happy that way. Be yourself, that's who I like, no matter what size you are. T-Though I stand by the fitting in doors thing, just as a suggestion."

Just like that she was back to her old self, happily prancing in place on the roof and squeeing. "Ok! I can still fit lots of places without being so tiny, I miss my pond though... I'll have to find lots of radiation somewhere, but I feel better already! Thank you Fast! Maybe this getting to know you date thing isn't so dumb..."

"Yeah, there is a reason for it Swan. Gotta spend time together and learn stuff like that about each other, tell each other things that are bothering us or we like. You know, be all umm... i-intimate like. I got lazy with telepathy, but you're not Ivy, you're Swan and you're great. We'll get by the old fashioned way just fine, just be sure to tell me when I'm being stupid again."

At her wing waving the invitation, I stepped over a few gaps and new dents in the rusty rooftop and moved to the edge with her, snuggling against her side and staring out at the dark towers of Trotson to the east. She was right, I had been thoughtless and hurt her, too wrapped up in my own problems and worries and not thinking of her. She came to help and be together and I took it for granted, making me resolve to make more of an effort at getting to know our new companion.

One thing I did know and like that was true at any size, Swan knew what she wanted and was up front about it. After sighing in contentment and curling her wing around me to enjoy the view a few minutes, she leaned down to flutter her eyelashes and grin. "Now can we play?"

"Umm! S-Still meant what I said earlier though Swan, let's take it slow and talk to Jade first. Not that I don't want to! I just... er... You're uncomfortable being small for some reason right? Well I'm uncomfortable jumping right in, m-mostly... I prefer to really know and care about the other pony, make it special and mean more than just... p-playing around. So I'd still like to wait if that's ok."

That unsure look flickered across her face again, but was thankfully replaced by a demure smile and nod. "Ok, I don't want to make you do stuff you don't want either, it's not nice trying to do stuff you don't want just to make a mate happy. C-Could you do that lip thing again though? I like that, and it is kind of nice doing it while I'm so small... if that's alright?"

I gave her a relieved smile back and nodded, leaning up to plant another kiss she eagerly leaned into with a giggle. Gasping to her when I had to tap out, I was already considering figuring out some kind of safe word or something with her if she did get any bigger.

"Kiss Swan, that's a kiss and that's fine. S-Sorry the first one I gave you was kinda rushed and maaaaybe a little bit of a trick to run away, but we can do that as much as you want to make up for it and get it right. We can just er... stay out here to do that, it'll let us keep an eye on Ms. Daily too. Just cause I feel bad for her doesn't mean I trust her or didn't want to hurt her at first too. Lemme just tell Val we're keeping watch and bring her firewood, I'll be right back."

That seemed to make the lavender mare feel even better, flicking a distrustful look down to the old mare's closed door before beaming back and nodding rapidly. "Ok! I can go look around and get more comfortable then!"

Shrugging at her happy plans, I glided over to the building where Glitter and Val's marks on E.F.S. were displayed, curious what she meant until I heard the splash from the river. More comfortable... the river couldn't be much more than a trickle of rads, but she was already down there soaking them up. I'd really have to see what was behind Swan's clear dislike of being normal sized, but it seemed personal and important to her and that's what mattered.

"This is a very small pony... I feel better somehow..." Swan mumbled around a mouthful of Insta-oats and peered closely at the breezie fluttering in her face, the tiny Spring Gale more like what she was used to when dealing with ponies at her normal scale.

"Is breezie, not pony... This is beeg-beeg-beeeeeeg pony Glitter tells aboot? Does not look so beeg..." Gale's yawning answer made Swan flush in embarrassment and toss her mane, sending the little breezie flapping back at her annoyed snort.

I ended up spending most of the night awake and involved in a rather extended makeout session with the purple alicorn, though we did get around to other things like talking... honest! A lot of it actually, relating all our adventures since I last saw Swan in Goodneighbor when I changed took hours by itself.

That was even with glazing over things here and there to make them simpler too, Swan was plenty smart and able to keep up, but she liked things simple and direct. Just reluctantly trying to explain what I had learned about Mobius took quite awhile to get across, more than him being a bad Institute pony to be smashed anyway...

Hearing about how she and her sisters at Trinity Tower were doing took up the other half of the night. From her account, things had really changed a lot there, a whole town was growing in the lower floors of the M.A.S. hub now, and while the upper floors were still the exclusive domain of the alicorns of Trinity Tower, they were going down and mingling quite a bit.

There was definitely a lot of deep, sharing type conversation though. There just also happened to be a lot of kissing too... Something Swan had decided she quite liked while she was so 'tiny' and was a quick study at...

So, I was groggy this morning, watching the back and forth between the two mares on opposite ends of the height chart sleepily. Swan insisted on sitting in the mildly radioactive river water in the boat shed all night during our ...guard duty, so she had put on an extra inch anyway. She was disgusted at how long it would take to reach her normal stature though, having the little breezie point out she wasn't as remarkable as the stories Glitter told her just rubbed it in.

Seeing how they hadn't been properly introduced and Gale had been bundled tightly in Glitter's mane last night, this was their first extended interaction and I was hoping for it to go a bit better. If we did help the breezies and convince them to help Ivy and Jade's other sisters as the need started rising, them making a good impression was important, especially Swan as she'd be next in line to need their care.

At least Glitter was awake and chipper as always in the morning, munching on a carroty Fancy Buck cake and spewing crumbs as she answered, breaking another cake in half and pushing it over to the breezie landing on the dirty countertop in the ruined apartment we had taken for the night.

"Oh Aunt Swan's normally reeeeeeally big Gale! Like a dragon or somethin', I look like a breezie next to her! Dunno why she's not now though, how come Aunt Swan? I thought you really like bein' great big?" In just one cheery sentence, Glitter cut right to the heart of what had taken me far too long and too much help to figure out... Now I felt worse not asking that simple question right off.

Her smirking smile just made me flinch as Swan looked to be thinking along the same lines, but her disposition sweetened and she took the other half of the cake Glitter was offering, the foal getting the two new acquaintances to share a meal without even trying. "I do... Though fitting in places is interesting sometimes, Miss Cocoa showed me around her town and taught me things while I waited! It was fun! I'll go back to normal when I find better radiation though, then your little friend will see."

Val tittered laughter from her post peeking through the cracked window, enjoying her morning beer while keeping watch for our fellow inhabitant of the ruins of Egret Marina. "Good! Disappointed them assholes goin' after Jamocha Plains didn't get the full monster alicorn treatment last night! I'll go finds me s'more when yer large an' in charge again, just ta watch em piss themselves!"

"Let's hope it doesn't come up instead of looking for it Val, heading into the city is risky enough. We just wanna get in and out, this place isn't far and if we're lucky it will have what we need."

Trying to shake off the sleepiness dragging my head down to the counter, I hopped off the rickety stool by my daughter and started gathering our junk, tugging the door open with my magic to let in some light and fresher air into the stuffy apartment. The bright view out of the missing wall of the bedroom made me wince, taking in the crisp air and frost sparkling over every surface, though it did clear away the sooty smoke from our guttering fire.

Taking the cue to get moving, Val slugged the rest of her beer back and belched loudly, earning a long giggle from Glitter as she checked her weapons and asked a curious question. "Yeah, about that. Where we goin' anyhoo? Still don't get it, you wanna go to some ruin fer a place what made them silly holotape game things? To get into the MoWT hub... the most secure and badass hub in the Commonwealth... with games?"

I turned from staring up at the thin, wispy clouds moving quickly across the sky and back to Glitter, already bundled in her coat and furry Yakyakistan hat. "I know it sounds weird, but yeah, basically Val. How about we walk for awhile, until the sun warms things up a little more. I'll explain on the way."

I didn't hear any objections to the idea, Glitter grew up wandering the Commonwealth and never complained about hoofing it. Being able to prance around and explore with a curious breezie at her side, who was interested in every new ruin out in the beeg pony world, just sweetened it for her. Swan wasn't far behind them either since she never really left her pond and Trinity Tower, plus she eagerly said traveling on hoof would let her look for more radiation. Only Val grumbled a bit, but didn't say a word with concern for Glitter's health taking precedent, it was cold up in the sky even on warmer fall days past, right now it looked and ...felt... way too harsh to take her up there.

Old Ms. Daily didn't come out of her ruined home when we trotted out, though I could hear her and feel her eyes nearby. Val and Swan both gave matching disgusted looks when I stopped at the tumbled down chain link gate across the road leaving the marina, but I called back to her anyway, wishing the old mare well and hoping I gave her something to think about. Jade or Ivy would have done better, but Swan had her point too and I appreciated it, leaving her to her isolation was a compromise my current guilt about the Institute could live with.

Walking turned out to be a good choice for once after we left, the narrow country roads near the river set a nice pace and gave Glitter some exercise, keeping the chill at bay as we were able to walk and talk a lot easier than yelling over the wind. Letting us enjoy even the skeletal woods and wasteland view with it bright and covered in frost.

There were isolated Miretanks hunting this close to the river, but this far from shore were usually only two or three at a time, and the click-click of their claws on the asphalt or frosty ground made them easy to keep track of. Dispatching them also let us get to know each other in a different way, working together as a party traveling the wasteland and getting familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses.

The road started getting choked with ruin the closer we moved to Trotson, but switching over where the railroad tracks crossed it let us keep heading north, providing a better, elevated path with clearer lines of sight. We had to deal with a cluster of zombies near the wrecked trains that lurched up at our approach, whether original passengers or just feral zombies finding somewhere to lay in ambush, which did keep us on guard a little. Though there was the added bonus of derailed train cars rusting away to ruin for Val and Swan to search, one for loot and one for anything highly radioactive...

Mission: From Within

Objectives---
--Investigate Bitway Games HQ
--Find Ministry of Wartime Technology Hero arcade cabinet

"Ya mean that goofy game down in Shamrock's casino?! The only one Blue actually liked, that silly Ministry of Peace, learn ta be a doctor nonsense? That thing!? That let us get inta the hub!?" Val picked the lock on another sliding steel door from a cargo car halfway down the muddy slope from the tracks. Scratching her plumage and looking back incredulously after I had simplified and explained our current goals displayed on my pip-buck well enough to get it across.

"The game I found for mommy!? That helped?!" Glitter joined in, sticking her head out from scavenging in a tilted passenger car still partially on the tracks and yelping proudly at the discovery.

She explored the Wing Ding casino floor better than any of us and had brought her mother to that game knowing she'd like it, finding out our plans now hinged on her find made her beam down at me happily from the window of the old traincar.

"Yeah sweetie, turns out the whole 'You Win' screen she got that said 'go enlist with the Ministry of Peace today' wasn't just a joke. I got a better look at a prototype of that old arcade cabinet back at the hub and figured the rest out from there, lots of fancy tech for an arcade game, it had a little communication system even! It said to try the other Ministry games and I'm hoping it's the same on any of them. If you win, it sends a signal to the hub and the maneframe running it, like a golden ticket to let you in that the.... er... Great Tree recognized."

Putting it in those terms and remembering not to dismissively address Gale's guardian diety as just a computer to be fooled looked to help the little breezie grasp what I had been explaining. She coughed popping out of a moldy old suitcase still up in the overhead storage of the train with Glitter, her antenna tugging a few floral printed hankerchiefs to bundle up in as she caught on.

"Ohhhh... Funny game ting talk tu Great Tree, so it let you in because Princess pony get invitation? Dere is uther Great Trees in beeg pony world Fast?" That look of wonder and suddenly searching the skyline for other giant trees was bound to be disappointed, but she got the gist of it.

"They aren't all Great Trees like the MoP Gale, they're buildings, but yeah there are more and they all have like... a relative of your Great Tree running the place. Swan and her sisters live in another hub actually. If we can go find a game for the Ministry of Wartime Technology, the MoWT hub should know about it and let us in, or give me a backdoor to work with anyway. Er... provided we beat the game, and find a working one first... it's a plan in progress ok? It's not far..."

I got a little defensive actually explaining it as Val's excited look got more doubtful, snorting and turning back to searching for more loot, her tail flicking out the top of the fallen car as she called back. "Sure boss, sounds easy enough, we'll just go pick up one of these goofy game cabinets fer all the other hubs an' bring em back with us. No problem!"

If that's what it took, I was perfectly fine with that actually... Besides getting to take home my own arcade cabinets to play with as I wanted in Sanctuary, it would keep anypony else from stumbling on the same backdoor we found by accident. Though hearing her say it, it did sound a little impractical. Thankfully Gale and Glitter saved me, hopping back to the tracks and galloping up to where Swan was investigating a cargo car full of yellow barrels spilling down the tracks, kicking one in disappointment with a hollow bong.

"Yu live in Great Tree type place tu beeg-beeg pony? Is dere voice of yur Great Tree that talk tu yu tu?" Gale fluttered up to the pouting alicorn's face curiously, here was something she could relate to that the breezies and alicorns shared.

"Umm... Voice? There aren't voices back home... except unity, but that's normal, the building doesn't talk. Though I don't really go inside often... maybe it does and they never told me? It doesn't let us in certain places still, even with all those new ponies wandering around and wanting to go there." Swan blinked back at the question, tilting her head and thinking on it as a distraction from still not finding a convenient balefire crater or something in the last hour.

Glitter gasped at that, remembering what we had heard before about 'Unityville' and the Trinity Tower mare's attempts at joining the wasteland. Unlike me she hadn't sat up with a kissing aficionado and been filled in yet. "Oh yeah! You gots like a whole town of other ponies now Aunt Swan! I wanna visit an' see sometime, what's it like now? Do you like havin' more company near your pond?"

"It's ok... a lot of them were scared of me... but they were getting used to me I think. The radiation keeps all but the ghouls away, but they help me guard some! Guarding's gotten harder with so many little ponies running around... before it was always just scare ponies away or smash them, now there's ones it's ok to let in and ones it's not, crimes and breaking up fights... smashing is easier... I'm happy to take a vacation for a little while!" Swan actually sounded a little ...worried there for a second, I hadn't thought about what everything changing would be like for her, but it seemed to be weighing on her mind.

Now I felt worse... and more curious why she insisted on staying super sized all the time. With a bunch of normal ponies down on the lower levels of the tower with her now, she probably had to deal with a lot of freaked out guests anytime she stretched her legs, her job had gotten a lot more complicated and needed a more subtle (smaller) hoof. I wouldn't be surprised if she was already dealing with rejection from others based on her size back home, and she thought I felt the same way? Made herself small for me, when she hadn't for anypony else back home?

"You're a great guard though Swan! You're intimidating, but not scary unless you want to be, and now you've got a lot more ponies counting on you to be strong and protect them. Let your new guarding friends handle the er... little stuff. I'm sure all those new ponies will love you when they get to know you better, just give them a chance to see how special you are. There's a lot to see usually, when you're not hiding in your pond."

A little flattery went a long way with Swan, something I made a mental note of as she pranced at my side and nuzzled her way across the railway overpass, crumbling to the wrecked road below one large stone at a time. With one eye continually checking my map for Ivy's mark now flying north to Goodneighbor, I had a good idea where we were now and was a little nervous this close to Diamond City.

We hadn't been anywhere near the Great Green Jewel's territory since escaping their jail, so I wasn't too keen on running into any D.C. Guards if we could avoid it. Fliers weren't nearly as rare around the capital of the Commonwealth either, with a healthy pegasus population living there, so it was actually better to stay low where we were a tad less remarkable. A little slower, but I was born a unicorn, I still liked walking sometimes.... Just to remind me of that fact if nothing else.

As the ground rose up towards the outskirts of the western city, the first low canyons of ruins started closing around us and signs of raiders and other frequent battles began appearing. Still, it had been fairly safe going and quiet, almost making me dare to hope we'd manage to just slip in and out without incident.

"H-Hey! Help! Help please!" The shaky cry echoing down the street to my ears almost made me groan, of course not...

Not that I'd turn away from helping somepony in need. But couldn't there be one day where there wasn't always one somewhere? Where some misery and mayhem wasn't just part of the cost of surviving out here? 'Be Unwavering!'

Her medium yellow coat and dark blue mane were filthy and a few scars showed through her light leather armor and ratty jacket, a crude pipe pistol looked to be her only weapon too. She didn't have a bunch of spikes, bloodstains or tanned cutie marks on her armor anyway, and her own mark wasn't something like a skull or bloody dagger from what I could make out, a pair of masks actually, one happy, one sad.

Val's weapons clicked menacingly and Swan growled at the pony prancing in the street up ahead, to be fair I pushed Glitter behind me warily and drew the Terrible Shotgun too... but I did call back and try to sound friendly.

"Hi there! What's wrong? Are you ok Miss?"

I was a little heartened to see the three story office building the strange mare was calling from was just where I wanted to go at least, Location Discovered: Bitway Games HQ blinked in the corner of my view still centered on the anxious looking mare. A sturdy structure of dirty red brick, the wide double doors out front were under a dark sign of broken bulbs and golden glitter reading; Bitway Arcade.

Neat! The first floor was an arcade! I probably shouldn't be so excited by that with the desperate filly ahead of us, but I couldn't help a bit of foalhood glee even so. She sounded almost frantic and full of worry though, the tremor to her voice as she backed towards the waiting doors bringing me back to the present.

"M-My friend! We were scavenging and the floor fell in! H-He broke his leg and we used our last potion! I can't pull him out! Please help!" Her pitiable cries made me shake off my laziness and distraction, standing a little straighter and trying to sound properly heroic, this was the kind of thing the Minutemares were for, helping where they could.

"It's ok! We'll give you a hoof, just hang on and..."

"Thank you! Thank you so much! Right this way, he's in here! Hey Rattle! It's ok..." Rather than wait, the slender yellow mare dashed back inside, calling to her injured friend and darting glances back the way she came, waving us on with her tail excitedly.

I pulled up to a brisk trot and headed that way, confused by Val's groan and suspicious grumble. "Don't like it boss... tell 'er ta git her ass back out here..."

"Val, she needs help, she's worried for her friend, we can't just ignore her."

"The hell we cain't! Blue ain't around, toss her a potion if you feel all Princess-y, be generous an' give her a tab of Buck if ya want sos she can pull him out herself, but don't just go wandering on in after her!" Val huffed back, flapping up a few feet and scanning all around.

"That's where I want to go anyway. Maybe we're lucky and they already found what I want, we can help each other."

Whether they agreed or not, Val and Swan took up their positions we had settled out on traveling this far, letting me take the lead and following at Glitter's flanks, the filly protected from three sides as we moved in a tight cluster up the street. Our damsel in distress had already gone into the gloomy building, her mark still green on E.F.S. and pointing the way.

"He's just this way! Not far in, hurry please!" The mare called back from the next room once we cautiously entered what was a small ticket room by the looks of it.

There were several automated Bits to Tokens machines by a flickering Sparkle Cola vending machine to the left. A counter to the right with a lot of stuffed prizes turned to so many rags, the plastic prizes surviving much better and still under the guard of the skeletal pony draped over the rusty pink cash register. A door beyond the flip up counter still hanging on by one tarnished hinge had a terminal lock that caught my eye, the view of stairs through the dirty window on the portal making it the likely way to go to reach the game company floors.

The dimly lit space ahead was where the mark on Eyes Forward Sparkle led though, the twinkles and distorted, multicolored lights and dancing shadows making it hard to get much sense of what lie beyond. It was a big space, full of dark hulks and a few functional games, arcades were generally kept dark and windowless from what I remembered of the rare treat, but there was usually lights of some kind... Were they all out? But the games weren't?

I was just starting to really feel the suspicion Val did as soon as she saw our missing 'friend', now even her mark on E.F.S. was gone and there were a lot of places to hide in there... Vengeance came out in the dim glow of my magic and I spun the cylinder before flicking it closed again, satisfied at six soldiers waiting there. "Miss? Where'd you go... I think we lost you... Have to lead us to your friend in order to-"

Two things hit me there, one after the other. The first was the smell... It was distant and took a second to pick up in the gust of fresh air from the door being opened, but it crept back and alicorn senses dutifully reported it. Meat... rotting meat... A lot of it somewhere in there.

The second thing was a hail of gunfire hitting the flickering purple barrier that sprang to life in the doorway, E.F.S. went from empty to full in a cacophony of firearms, most pinging uselessly against Swan's bright shield that added to the illumination, showing shifting shadows of a lot of raiders springing their trap.

Scrambling backwards to Glitter, I barely had time to turn back to the door before it slammed shut, the sound of something heavy sliding against it outside along with manic cackling. I yanked the suprised filly to my back in a rush, turning back to the crash of Val's pistol as she peeked around the door frame and the edge to Swan's shield.

I could do without her 'I told you so' glare back, though Swan handled it for her with a pouty question before acting as she liked. "It's ok to kill these ponies, isn't it?"

"Yes Swan, it's ok to kill these...."

My growl back made Swan nicker happily, her gritted teeth becoming distinctly sharp and predatory as she flared her wings and crouched, ready to pounce into the room and tear the frustrated raiders to pieces. Unfortunately they weren't the typically stupid raiders, they lured us into a trap, and one they had set up well.

"Gots ourselves a big haul boys! Mop up what's left!" A sneering laugh from overhead drew my eyes up just in time to see a trio of metal apples tumble down from a ragged hole in the ceiling, more raiders camped out over the entryway pinch point.

"Fuck! GO!! Move yer ass an' take it to em goofy!" Val screeched and shoved Swan towards her own shield, reaching back for Glitter and I and relieved to see me already coming to the same conclusion, no way out but through...

"Sweetie stay down! Hold on really tight and keep your head down! It's gonna be-"

That was as far as I got before the world exploded behind us, my daughter didn't panic and I could feel her little legs squeeze my neck in a death grip as I was lifted off the ground by the blast, spreading my wings and clumsily trying to level off, without crashing into the heavy pillars of the arcade cabinets acting as cover for the raiders that were rushing up.

I got a vague impression of Val and Swan both going different directions, dodging around the forest of obstacles a lot better than I could and both descending on the raiders before they could recover either. I fared less well... clipping a dark buckball game and skidding across the litter strewn floor, desperately trying to keep my head and wings up to provide some kind of cover to the foal screaming on my back over the noise.

The Terrible Shotgun joined Vengeance being dragged back in my magic, bringing up S.A.T.S. let me better tell just what kind of briar patch we had stumbled into and try to do something about it. This place was a maze of sturdy games and wreckage, those not functional were pushed around strategically to offer the raiders plenty of cover arrayed around the only entrance.

S.A.T.S. showed me where they were even better than alicorn vision though, the glowing outline of one target after the next highlighted as I flicked through those I could see just a sliver of through their barricades. More than a dozen just in the immediate vicinity, more than that in the directions Val and Swan's green marks were, plus who knew how many more upstairs... great...

Using up the full spell charge, I queued up as many shots as I could at the half hidden targets, hoping the shotgun slugs and .45 rounds were enough to penetrate some of the junk they were hidden behind as I accepted the sequence. Time resumed and both weapons started barking, blasting one dark screen in a shower of sparks, hobbling the leg of a greenish grey buck galloping past a hoof hockey table, sending one lunatic charging out with a fire axe tumbling back to his fellows on his heels.

The high speed work of the weapons guided by Stable-Tec magic was dwarfed by more explosions across the room, the rapid thump and ka-boom of Val's grenade machinegun tearing up large swaths of the arcade in a display that made me wince. Some of those were still working...

I would complain since we were after one of those games actually, but the muffled squeal and bright pink lances of magical energy weaponry coming from over my head made that less important. Glitter was right in the thick of this mess with me, normally she'd be with her mother or Ivy, an alicorn that could actually make an alicorn shield... I had no such protection and was often the primary target, on my back was the worst place she could be!

A familiar red shape ahead gave me something to shoot for, the curves and fins of a big Space Captain Andromeda rocketship game, the open cockpit was small and the craft in front of the flickering screen looked like it was made of pitted steel flaking cheery red paint, somewhere with more protection than a pair of madly flapping wings anyway.

One thing I did have going for me, the raiders kept their trap dark so they were shooting at backlit silhouettes at the entrance, here in the dark with them, we were on even terms. Worse for them actually as I was a moving shadow already with my dark colors and Shrouded Stallion armor.

I tried another ungainly flap to the sagging ceiling, getting a brief look around the large room and spotting the round shell of Swan's shield plowing through obstacles like bowling pins. She was happy anyway... Not trying for anything fancy, I tucked my wings and made my short flight into one long jump, firing the rest of the current drum of shotgun shells from the flank as I came down on the cluster of raiders near the rocketship.

Putting my chest first and my head back earned me several hammering rounds slamming directly into my chest, but kept Glitter as safe as possible as I stumbled and rolled to the heavy ride, glad to see a few dents there from stray rounds already, but no gaping holes. Sturdy enough...

Gasping and sucking in a burning breath, another bright pink beam from Glitter's Righteous Authority turned a crazed orange mare to ash as she skidded around a broken crane game, leaving me lagging behind to blow the head off the buck on her tail. Her victorious little snort just made me worry more, I set a horrible example for my daughter...

"Glitter! Up in the ride, scoot! Stay down and don't move!"

She obediently scrambled up my neck as I leaned against the rocket, huffing back with a resigned whine. "Fiiii-ine! But I helped daddy! I got..."

I had to rudely shove her down to lay across the rounded hull and use the last .45 round on a screaming pale blue stallion leaping over a wall of broken cabinets. At least the boom of the revolver by her ear and the spurt of blood from my neck just where her head had been convinced her, her pale face going a bit paler as I tried to reload and hissed back to her.

"I know, you're doing great sweetie, but this is serious! Stay down, shoot if you have to but stay here, if they don't see you they won't know to shoot you. I'll be right here, but they're going to be focused on me, ok? Make sure it stays that way!"

Her determined nod from down in the floor of the rocket gave me the courage to leave her, she wasn't leaving my sight, but I couldn't draw attention to her. At a thought, Blue Moon clicked out at my side and started crackling with energy as I flapped up overhead The bright, pale blue beam still wasn't very accurate, but it made sure the raiders knew I wasn't near where she sheltered any more and a few shots got lucky even.

Just to pile it on, my horn lit up with the voice altering spell and the Shroud's rumbling growl echoed through the cavernous space. "GREETINGS EVILDOERS... YOU SHOT AT MY DAUGHTER, YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE..."

No clever quips or enticements to their better nature, 'Be Dark...' surged forth at the invitation, seething with hate over not just the fact Glitter was in danger, but how we wound up this way. They lied... they pretended to be good, took advantage of ponies who would help to slaughter them, that bitch who was the good actress was bait, her story a lie, all of it was lies.

'Betrayers...'

Just like grandpa... Pretend to be good while you're really evil, let ponies think one thing while you do another... A fresh drum of shotgun shells clicked home and went to good use, the Terrible Shotgun lighting the shadows in bright flashes that showed horrible scenes of how long they had been at it.

A sunken eyed teal mare was thrown back from the slug through her ribs as she broke for cover, sliding across the floor in her own blood and slamming into a dual screened racing game. The dirty sign identified it as Red Racer Gran Prix, the pair of scooter shaped seats to control it from had been replaced with a pair of corpses though, bound to the machine with barbed wire and clearly ridden hard until they died.

'Murderers...'

I flew around the rocket Glitter sheltered inside in widening loops, hitting the ground to run for more speed thanks to the aura of lightning flickering around me by itself, then bounding back up to continue the campaign of destruction I was getting lost to.

A basketball game where the victims were made to be the hoops and the leathery balls had sharpened nails festooning them flashed by. Lit in the pale blue-white beam of Blue Moon turning a light machinegun wielding buck to ash. They lured ponies here not just to rob, but to torment and indulge in their twisted parody of what this place once was.

'Torturers...'

Both barrels of a double barreled shotgun waiting past the crumbling pillar I flew past sent me reeling, the blast of buckshot tearing into my wing and ribs, throwing me against scavenged chain link fencing surrounding what had been a ball pit for younger customers. The smell of piss, shit, blood and terror assaulted my senses as I dragged myself back up, peering woozily through the gaps to the filthy ponies cringing in the corner. Prisoners... some they hadn't gotten done playing with yet...

'Slavers...'

At least most raiders were up front about what kind of assholes they were, even the Gunners were proud of the fact they were murderous psychopaths. These oh so clever raiders though... they were the raider equivalent of the Institute, liars and manipulators hiding in the shadows. Tricking good ponies to play their sadistic little games.

'Liars...'

Past their miserable, desperate eyes, I could see the very bitch who tricked us here galloping away... Running right over the ramps of a row of skeeball machines and towards a dilapidated employees area door in the corner. The evil mare bucked a pair of grenades the way she came, only offering me the chance to fumble at them with my magic because my burning eyes had locked on to her at the first glimpse. 'Awareness!'

I flung both grenades towards the largest clumps of red on E.F.S. and growled around the handle of Best Served in my mouth. The star metal blade sliced easily through the fencing penning the abused prisoners in and I tried to keep the growl out of my voice, "Stay or go, up to you."

I wanted to go after her... chase her down, give her a taste of the terror and suffering she inflicted on others. The rest of these savages at least had the excuse of being raiders, crude, violent and stupid for the most part. That one was smart and sane enough to know right from wrong though, all the better to act convincingly good and normal... She didn't get to escape.

Glitter held me back though, I wanted to kill that bitch, but I had to protect my daughter, I couldn't do both... What was more important was easy enough, wasn't it? Of course it was. Best Served glimmered in the shadows and spun back to her rocketship protection, twirling low to the ground and slicing the legs off muddy brown raider who had gotten too close to her in one pass.

The image of the masks on that cunt's flanks as they retreated away from proper divine punishment wouldn't leave me though. I wanted her more than her cohorts, wanted to slash and bite and taste her blood, watch her die slowly...

'Let me....'

No! Glitter! I wasn't leaving her just to chase after some vile mare, no matter how much she deserved Luna's wrath or how insistently that creeping voice of 'Be Dark...' demanded it. It was almost like that murderous impulse had been waiting for Ivy to no longer be around to watch it, free to tempt and struggle for control at the provocation these raiders offered.

Still fighting with myself, my ears flicked at the 'FWOOSH!' sound of a missile being loosed and I barely spun my head in time to see the projectile coming right at me. My bleeding wing wasn't agile enough to rely on, so I hit the floor rolling out of the path of the explosive streaking from the door the mare had retreated through. She went and got the big guns... the ugly crimson buck wearing metal armor had to be higher up the food chain, judging by his superior firepower.

I rolled back to my hooves as the missed shot detonated behind me, the near miss made my pip-buck start complaining about a crippled hindleg before I found out by putting weight on it with a hiss. Ignoring the sharp pain of shrapnel and warm blood back there, I forced it into working well enough to tense, ready to charge right at him and put that missile launcher battle saddle out of commission as soon as possible. The high pitched scream piercing the explosion stopped me cold though, I felt the color drain out of my face as time seemed to slow down on looking back to Glitter's cry.

I dodged... the missile kept going and blew up near the rocketship she was hiding in. The screen was a smoking ruin and I watched the ship itself flipping lazily through the air, torn loose from the rest of the game and sent cartwheeling through the air. Glitter was in there... screaming...

'No...'

"GLITTER! NO!!!"

I roared in a panic, my magic banishing the shadows as it reached out and enveloped the tumbling ride before it could crash to the ground, along with everything else not nailed down in range... The assorted junk, rubble and dead arcade machines made a swirling shield of detritus, blocking off another missile that exploded against the barrier behind me, an unimportant annoyance compared to diving towards Glitter as the rocket settled gently to the floor.

My heart tried to stop seeing the blood coating half her slack face, was she breathing!? I couldn't hear her heart!! I... No.... there it was, a slow beat that sped up in a rush as her brow furrowed and she coughed to suck in a deep breath, the wind knocked out of her from the blast wave, her dizzy pink eyes goggling back up to me with a wince.

"D-Daddy? Wha..." She groggily whimpered up to me, bruised and bleeding from being thrown around the cockpit of the little rocket and smacking into the unforgiving controls, but alive and aware... Thank you Goddesses...

Struggling to stay in control, I shoved a normal healing potion in her muzzle and was relieved to see Spring Gale's long antenna glowing from her silver mane. The little breezie in the MoP nurse's outfit took the uniform seriously and was already trying to heal that gash on her head, it bled a lot, but didn't look serious and was already knitting back together.

Gale started healing even before getting the rest of her senses back, woozily blinking up from the filly's head and shivering in fear. "Is over yet Fast Shroud? Bad ponies is scary, vant to go.... leetle pony hurt!"

"I know, it's ok, it's all going to be ok Glitter, just drink. Keep helping her Gale, we'll get out of here in just a..."

Another explosion went off behind me, impacting an already dead Gauntlet of Fire game I flung back towards the source. Sending the flaming wreck back at him gave the bastard something to think about as more junk swirled closer to fill the gap, my burning eyes found his bloodshot orange ones, just before the burning junk slammed him against the wall with a satisfying crack of bone anyway. Val swooped down on him as he struggled out from under the heavy weight pinning him and her pistol took away the chance to properly punish the bastard.

'More...'

"VAL!! HELP ME!!!"

I screamed and took conscious control over the maelstrom of junk swirling around us, drawing it closer to make a thick wall of debris nearly to the ceiling. I was surprised at the weight and just how much of it there was floating around without thinking about it or intending it. Disregarding that and the approaching squawk of my loyal bodyguard, I turned back to see a little color returning to Glitter's face as the potion and Gale went to work.

"Ok sweetie, you're ok, you two just stay down and I'll be right back, this will all be over in just a minute..."

"Boss! The kid ok?! What's... oy! Where you goin' shithead!" Val landed atop my makeshift wall and started prowling it, sending a rain of red M.E.W. beams down between craning her neck to peek in the crashed rocket, worry fighting with her normal glee at a good fight.

I gave Glitter a rushed hug and flapped up to join Val, fighting very hard to stay in control and beat back the rage pounding at my temples. My oozing wounds and limping leg were unimportant, barely getting a wince as I scrambled up my wall of junk aided by one good wing, giving Val a hard stare as I spoke in a ragged voice full of fury.

"Val... guard Glitter, protect her for me..."

Seeing my weapons floating beside me and the gleaming knife in my mouth, Val instantly objected, pausing briefly to send a pair of 25mm grenades out into the carnage before voicing her rejection. "Boss... what'cha think yer doin'... I ain't gonna..."

"GUARD HER! That's an order Val, nopony gets near her while I'm gone..."

The fiery griffon flinched at the ominous voice of the Shroud leaking into my own. I never actually gave her orders, I hated doing it... we were friends, friends didn't order friends... But I didn't want to argue about it, I wanted to kill all of these remaining raiders and hunt down that bitch, before the glowing purple dervish marking Swan's trail of destruction beat me to it. 'Be Dark...' would accept nothing less.

I saw the wounded look on Val's face and hated ordering her around even more, but shook it off and forced myself to drink one of Jade's green tinted healing potions. Flexing my healing leg and wing, the Terrible Shotgun blasted an unlucky raider trying to move closer before the furious voice of the Shrouded Stallion boomed out.

"RUN NOW IF YOU WANT, BUT NO PLACE IS SAFE. DEATH HAS COME FOR YOU EVILDOERS, AND I AM IT'S SHROUD!"

There was a brief hitch in the fighting, the jittering red marks on E.F.S. paused as I launched myself off my wall of junk. Lightning crackled around me in a flickering aura and I hit the ground running, leaving an arcing trail of electricity in the gloom and zipping towards one mark after another.

BLAM! Vengeance punched through the makeshift armor of a raider stallion crouched behind a whack an eel game, sending the bleeding buck reeling back to the machine and clutching the spurting hole at his heart weakly.

'More...'

BOOM! The Terrible Shotgun blew the hindleg off a green mare trying to run for it, her screams as she hit the floor and bled out music to my ears.

'More...'

SNICKT! Best Served slashed neatly through the throat of a pale blue buck a year or two younger than me, age no excuse for his behavior and I happily took his head.

'More...'

I grabbed the severed head in my magic and pulled it with me as I blasted onward, lobbing the still blinking head towards a cluster of red dashes and savoring the fearful yelps. I took several lucky shots from panicked spray from a submachine gun, but plowed forward anyway, slashing and shooting, getting sprayed in gore and licking blood from the handle of my knife.

'MORE...'

The spiky maned mare I was aiming for next was suddenly skewered by a trio of glowing purple arrows, leaving me to skid to a frustrated halt and nearly run directly into the flickering sphere of Swan's shield as she came around the corner. Eyes Forward Sparkle still tracked more targets, but they had to be in the back or upstairs, the arcade had been cleared in a frenzy of killing that had me panting before the big alicorn.

Thinking of Jade, I absently worried about what a sight I must be, covered in blood and viscera, sharp fangs gnawing at the handle of my starmetal blade and both firearms reloading with a thought in a talented swirl of telekinesis. Surprisingly, Swan didn't fret or worry like Jade or Ivy would, instead she grinned with her own sharp smile and nodded happily.

"There aren't any more to kill here, I smell more though... Can we go kill them too? Does this count as a date?" Swan pranced in place and shrugged towards the door the bitch retreated through, she wasn't offended or worried... she liked this as much as that darker part of me did.

'MINE...'

"Yes... Yes we can go kill them Swan, all of them... But I want that bitch who led us here, let me have her if you find her first. Do that and this counts as a date Swan."

The growl in my voice didn't bother Swan in the slightest, instead she bobbed her head and smiled, joining me as I pushed through the battered and bullet ridden door, after the vile mare who led us into this trap. Val was still with Glitter, both of their green marks safely behind us. She wouldn't like it, but Glitter wouldn't be safe until they were all dead and I couldn't leave it to her to do for me, couldn't give up the pleasure of tearing that cunt apart myself to stay with my daughter instead.

I knew it was wrong, but I wanted it anyway...

'CRUNCH!' Swan teleported directly over the head of a pink raider mare at the next intersection and fell like a ton of bricks, snapping her spine and craning her head down to look upside down into the mare's dying eyes, squinting closely before looking up cheerily. "Nope! Not this one either Fast!"

Apparently she had taken my request for the yellow mare who tricked us as some kind of challenge as we made our way up one floor and the next. Any male raider in her way just got obliterated as efficiently as possible, but mares got the ton of fun treatment, or slammed to the wall in her powerful telekinesis, or their hearts stopped... Swan had a variety of spells for hurting ponies and knew how to use them, holding back so they didn't die immediately just so she could check if they were the bitch or not.

After seeing that display, a silver mare dashed from what looked like an employee break room just down the hall. She wisely didn't even attempt to go after the purple alicorn that squished her friend though, instead opting to run the opposite direction as Swan's head snapped up and her eyes turned dragonish.

The Last Minute whined and a blurring 2mm slug tore through the raiders head before the glow of Swan's horn could teleport her that way. Jade wouldn't like killing a fleeing opponent, but at the moment she wasn't here and I didn't care, they all deserved to die and that was actually more merciful than letting Swan get her.

She turned a pouty look my way for taking away her next victim and whined for that much actually. "That was a mare... what if it was..."

"Yellow Swan, we want a yellow mare, blue mane, masks on her butt. Just kill all the rest quick, but try not to smash her if we find her right away, sure technically that one's alive still... but not for long huh? Actually could you..."

At my nod, Swan blinked and looked down to her four hooves still planted together on the pink mare's back. Her victim gurgled and foamy blood sprayed from her mouth in rough attempts at words, her forelegs uselessly twitching on the floor to drag her away from the big alicorn.

"Oh! Right..." Swan gasped sheepishly and raised one strong foreleg with a smile, closing her eyes in the happy expression as her hoof came down sharply and cracked the raider's skull like a walnut.

The part of me that wasn't still lusting for blood itself felt a little queasy watching her shake the brains off her hoof and prance over. The hint of dissatisfaction on Swan's face wasn't from the act itself, or the gore, it was that it was harder than it should be. If she were her normal, giant self, smashing that raider to paste would have only taken one hoof.

That other, darker part of me that was currently winning though... 'Be Dark...' liked Swan... Hell, it loved her. My mane itched and my wings stood up slowly in a pinion flaring display that made her giggle. The growl of 'MINE...' loud and excited, annoyed the bitch it still wanted to kill eluded us and was delaying claiming her.

For her part, Swan seemed to feel the same way no less... She brought up her glowing shield around us and trotted happily at my side as I prowled down the hall, leaning down to nuzzle my itchy mane and nicker her delight. "This is fun! I never get to go after bad ponies where they hide, being tiny isn't so bad I guess if I get to hunt them down in their little nests like this. When I get big again, you can go in to find them for me and tell me where to smash though! Then I could just bring the stupid building down and watch them run!"

"I want what's in this building Swan. If you smashed it, lots of cool stuff would be ruined." I replied in a ragged voice, trying to exert some control at least. All the violence and a very pretty mare that found it a turn on was getting to me...

Find the bitch first, then... 'MINE!'

There had been another set of stairs to the upper floors in the back of the first floor, giving me a direction to go and a little comfort for Glitter's safety. I doubted they had been able to crack that terminal locked stairwell up front, so it was unlikely they could come at Val from upstairs.

To get to her, they'd have to go through us, which was even less likely as we cleared our way to the third floor and blocked their progress. The third floor was full of offices, lots of dead terminals and a few still glowing ones, cubicles and larger personal spaces with fancier desks or big drafting tables.

The rotting posters on the walls and variety of junk on the desks marked this as something other than the boring business office spaces we had explored before though. These ponies made games and seemed to all be of a more juvenile bent. I absently wished I had grown up in this world, that it hadn't ended the way it did... Maybe I would have ended up working in a place like this.

"Oh, that's right, sister Ivy said you like silly junk and old world things. Well... you could go inside and flush them out for me! Then I could catch them when they run and stomp and smash! That sounds like lots of fun! Though it is fun hunting them where they hide too... If I was juuuuust small enough to fit inside, that would be good I guess. Then we could kill them all together, and play when we were done!" Swan nickered to herself and nibbled at my ears as we walked down the dusty halls, idly flicking her gaze forward to send an eldritch arrow lancing down the hall, just as a raider buck popped out, throwing him back and pinning him to the wall in a spray of blood until the magical arrow dissipated.

"P-Play later Swan... Though m-maybe that wouldn't be so bad, if you could keep it down to double sized that would probably fit I guess... Nnngh! Dammit... let's not get distracted, she's back here somewhere, I can smell her..."

Swan's big blue-violet eyes got sparkly and wide, squeeing to herself in joy at the approval of her amorous plans. By her reaction I was conflicted to realize she'd probably go right along with the dark fantasies trying to consume my attention, horrible yet wonderful visions of eviscerating the yellow cunt, then rolling around and rutting Swan in her blood, licking it off her curvy frame, bathing ourselves in it in a frenzy of carnal lust...

Thankfully she took the delay without complaint though, shaking her head and tromping forward, letting me clear those morbid mating impulses and fight for control. Swan shifted her shield into a moving wall ahead of us as she lowered her head to the floor and sniffed, returning to the task at hoof. She caught me staring up her short pink skirt, at her swishing tail and generous rump stuck up in the air at the posture and grinned as I facehoofed myself, but simply nodded and shrugged ahead of her.

"You can smell her too? I think she went this way, I didn't get a very good scent before she ran off though. So are you really like us Fast? Can you do everything we can?" Swan purred back and kept leading the way, following an invisible trail alicorn senses were able to pick up and expressing curiosity about my condition beyond being a male alicorn for once.

Talking helped me keep that furious grumble in my head quiet at least, I didn't want her like that... didn't want to do those things... I wanted it to be sweet and special, not... that. I nodded worriedly and thunked my head back into cooperating, reloading my weapons and peeking in rooms we passed as I answered.

"Not quite Swan. I er... I guess I'm mostly like you guys, but the mare who did this to me had some funny ideas. I can try to explain later... right now there's a few coming for us again, they just came in range, so the back of the building must be a little far away."

Looking all around and finding nothing, Swan blinked back in confusion. "How do you know that? I don't smell any, or hear any..."

"Oh... Right, I never had a chance to... hang on, I've got one with me!" Realizing what the difference was between us and how useful it was in combat, I paused and frantically dug in my saddlebags, retrieving one of my dwindling supply of pip-bucks from Stable 111 and holding it out to the squinted eyed stare watching me.

"One of those funny Stable things? For me?" Swan seemed unsure and poked at the arcano-tech device hovering before her. Granted it looked a little small for her and she wasn't much of a tech oriented mare, but they were too useful not to take advantage of for multiple reasons.

"For you Swan, I would have given you one back in Goodneighbor, but... t-things happened and I couldn't risk finding you. This is special to me, it comes from my home and I give them to ponies I care about, it can help you fight..."

That got her interest, though she still looked suspicious, plopping down as the jittery red dashes in my vision moved closer. "Help fight? But I fight good already... How will I wear that silly thing when I'm back to normal? It's so small..."

"Swan, please just trust me, that won't be an issue, it stretches. I want you to have this, if you wear it I can always find you and you can always find me. That's just one of the things it can do, it will help keep you safe and help you protect others. Will you let me give you this gift? Hurry..."

Her unsure expression turned into a wide, brilliant smile as she nodded. Explaining the gist of the locator tag system seemed to do it for her. Considering the rest of her sisters were searching the whole Commonwealth for me, being able to find me as she pleased was enough to make her agree and shoot a foreleg out. Though by the roses blooming on her cheeks, I got the idea Swan didn't get many heartfelt gifts or ponies concerned for her safety.

As soon as the pip-buck made contact with her shapely foreleg it activated and stretched to accommodate the appendage, blinking and beeping as it clicked closed and she gave a surprised little whinny. I checked the screen and saw the familiar hitch in the processor as it took in her unfamiliar anatomy, then displayed a cartoon alicorn on the start up screen.

Swan shook her head and blinked rapidly as the boot up sequence finished. "Ooooo... I see things!"

"Right... quick primer, there's a compass at the bottom of your vision right?" I waited for Swan's eyes to flick downwards and her nod, then continued rapidly. "Ok, the red marks there mean somepony bad, the green marks mean somepony good, usually..."

Just that brief explanation looked to make her even happier, panning her head left and right with a fang enhanced grin. "This thing can tell me who it's ok to smash and who not to? So if it's red, it's dead, yes?"

"Basically yeah..."

At that Swan squealed happily and pranced in place, fluttering her wings as she danced in tight circles before turning towards the nearest cluster of red in my own view, blasting forward with an ecstatic sing-songing cheer. "Yay! Red is dead! Red is dead!"

Of course... After the problems and worries she had shared about guarding at Trinity Tower becoming more difficult, her issues distinguishing between those it was ok to hurt and those who were free to come and go... The Eyes Forward Sparkle system must be a blessing from the goddesses for her, it removed any moral qualms or indecision, green was good, red was bad, simple as that...

I should have given it to her earlier, more thoughtlessness I really had to work on. For now I had to race to catch up to her warpath, the brief respite from the burning pyre of hate in my head already fading as I followed the destruction and added to it. I caught up in time to see a trio of raiders try to overwhelm her with numbers in desperation and watched her deal with it with aplomb.

A bright beam from her horn instantly halted their attack with a large crystalline block solidifying around them, leaving them trapped as she turned to a mare coming at her down the hall. It was a pale mare with a black mane in spiky armor though, I caught her muttering 'not yellow...' before she charged to meet her.

With her otherwise occupied, the Terrible Shotgun blasted the frozen raider-cicle and I was intensely satisfied to see it shatter with just one slug. The trapped raiders dissolved into bloody chunks along with the crystal prison, cutaway views of their bones and organs made my stomach churn, even as that darker voice relished the sight.

Now that she had E.F.S. to guide her along with her own sharp senses, it was hard to keep up with Swan's rampage. She was actually a little frustrating... I drew a bead on a tan buck with a dirty red mohawk, only for her to teleport in the way and snap his neck with one strong punch of her foreleg. I was forced to mop up the leftovers and back her up, stymied from really indulging in the violence and rage 'Be Dark...' kept screaming for.

Eventually we had it narrowed down to just one last red mark... the bitch had to be ahead, behind the door labeled;

While that was a little ominous and the words 'Testing Lab' made my tail bristle with thoughts of the Institute and their mad experiments, she had to be in there... I waited for Swan to trot over to the door with me, after scorching a bleeding raider mare trying to crawl away with an intense beam of magic. The lightly panting filly was happy as a clam, beaming and nodding back as I shrugged to the door and grabbed the handle in my magic.

"She's mine Swan..."

"Okie dokie Fast! Let's get her!" Swan whooped happily, bucking the door open when I twisted the handle and barreling in with her shield raised, ever the guardian protector but willing to indulge the demands of 'Be Dark...'

We charged in, only to be met with a booming, cheery voice blaring from overhead that was somewhat familiar.

I winced at the sudden glare of lights overwhelming eyes adjusted the dark halls and arcade beyond, blinking and taking in the strange room we found ourselves in. The floor was somewhat springy, a shiny grey mat spattered with blood, marked in a fading grid and dots all over. It was surrounded by rusty metal scaffolding at all four corners, stretching above in a roof of lights, electronics and catwalks in poor repair. Between each of the four pillars, a glowing blue field had appeared, closing us in yet another trap...

There was the bitch I wanted behind it too... Her hooves were still pressed against a large power switch on a wall of complicated equipment, wires and cables snaked from it to the scaffolding, providing the barrier that penned us in. She was scared... I could smell it from here, that tang of terror driven sweat that was ambrosial, but she had a look of cautious victory on her face.

That booming announcer voice blasted out of static filled speakers above as Swan threw herself against the shield between us, her own purple sphere bouncing off and sending her skidding back to me as it boomed cheerily.

Why the hell did that sound so familiar? After running through an arcade to get here, it slowly came back, just as a flickering, ghostly form materialized in front of us.... The highly defined muscles on the pale tan earth pony stallion glaring at us were a little much, like Big Macintosh with another pony's worth of muscle tacked on. He wore a ragged, sleeveless martial arts gi, the black belt around his barrel and flowing red bandana holding back his spiky brown mane waved in an impossible breeze in the stuffy room.

The whole picture finally clicked and I goggled, momentarily forgetting my rage in pure surprise. "Rue?"

Swan turned to my shocked whisper, spreading her shield to cover both of us as the fictional pony leapt up, landing on his hinglegs and throwing his forelegs forward in one fluid motion, a blazing blue fireball blasting out from his ghostly form and cracking Swan's barrier. This was impossible! Rue!? The character from Super Hoof Fighter!?

The weakened purple shield separating us was demolished when the ghost spun and gave an incredible buck, shattering Swan's shield and letting him dart forward to the big mare. He was instantly on her, taking another leap to reach her head in a spinning whirlwind of kicks from his outstretched hindleg.

"Ow! OW! Go away!" Swan ducked under the next spinning hoof and sprang up, slamming a foreleg up to Rue's chin in a devastating uppercut that merely knocked him back. She blinked and looked at her hoof in surprise, staring over at me with my mouth still hanging open stupidly. "You know this strange pony Fast? Is it a ghost? It didn't feel right when I hit it..."

Ghosts... Games... The Institute's hologram emitters!? Here!? That had to be it, there was no way for a character from a fighting game to be in the real world, currently launching himself back into the fray against the purple alicorn. "No! Er.. Yes, sort of! It's not real Swan, it's sort of like a ghost, just... try to hold it off!"

"You're gonna get pounded to a pulp! Just like all the rest! Then I'll clean up what's left you fucking bastard!" The shuddering yellow mare yelled from her position by the equipment she had apparently turned on. Sneering at us trapped in what she surely thought an inescapable snare.

The ghostly Rue was as brutal as he was in the game I vaguely remembered. I was young and the fighting game was more for the older ponies, though I did pick it up pretty quick when given the chance. Swan flapped up out of his range and sent several powerful spells down that passed through him harmlessly, only to be met by a rising uppercut that went all the way to the ceiling, slamming her back to the flickering shield around us. It was a game... a big, holographic game...

Somepony took the technology used in Hubris Comics and by the Institute to make Moondancer's little dollhouse simulation rooms, and used it to make a video game that brought the experience into the real world? Who did I know that would do something that insane?

"Grandpa..." I croaked, shaking off my shock at the bone cracking blows the fictional fighter was pummeling Swan with, he was as good as Zed!

Out of instinct, Vengeance snapped up and S.A.T.S. activated. All it would give me was Swan herself or the raider actress behind the shield though, as far as the targeting system was concerned, the attacker hurting Swan wasn't there... I canceled S.A.T.S. and squeezed off a round manually in fear, Swan was actually getting hurt!

The gleaming revolver boomed, but the shot that should have blown the fighter's head off passed through harmlessly. A negative sounding squall from the speakers came along with a computerized voice screeching 'INVALID ATTACK' and the beating simply continued unabated.

Swan's hoof to hoof attacks pushed it back though... Think stupid, it was a game, games had rules. These raiders weren't smart enough to reprogram it or anything, judging by the rusty switch the yellow mare was still panting beside, all they could do was turn it on an let it work as designed. If I was a kooky mad scientist... what would I make? How would I design something this batshit crazy?

Working on a hunch, I wobbled my way up to my hindlegs, holding my forelegs down and back just as the ghost had and praying. Copying his movements and thrusting both forelegs out in one mostly smooth motion, I hoped I was right.

To my surprise, a duplicate of the fiery blue ball of energy sprang from my outstretched hooves, streaking across the room and blasting the ghost right in the chest before it could launch another attack at Swan. The alicorn blinked in surprise through one blackened eye, curious even in the middle of such a violent struggle. "You can do that too!?"

"So can you I think! It's a game Swan! An old world game! Do what it does, fight it hoof to hoof! That's the only thing that will work! Try to beat its health down, it has to stop eventually, just gimme a minute to... shit!" My answer turned to a yelp as Rue turned on me, launching that attack made me a viable opponent...

It was spooky how fast it crossed the mat, though I remembered that watching the older kids play. The burly fighter streaked right at me, pounding me with holographic hooves that felt more than real enough. This was way too much for a game! No wonder they were still in testing, there were no safeties or concern for the player in place yet, it was for reals!

I coughed up blood when a spinning buck hooked into my gut, lifting me off the floor and slamming me to the glowing shield keeping us in. This had to be Grandpa's doing, sure... just use crazy advanced arcane technology to make a fighting game, make it as real as possible, don't even think about the players getting the snot bucked out of them and ending up in the hospital so long as it's interesting!

Swan blasted across the room, hindlegs first to crash into the occupied martial arts pony and send him flying. She worriedly whickered at me gasping on the floor, but her attention was quickly taken by Rue springing back to his hooves and going back on the offensive. Swan protected me though, getting the basic idea I tried to relate to her and answering Rue's thundering hooves with her own, engaging in a furious back and forth while I wheezed and seethed with fury.

Fucking Grandpa... I knew it, I felt it... My own fucking Grandfather made this trap, built this insanity that had obviously been used to torment plenty of ponies before me, the dried blood on the mat testament to their suffering. The raiders couldn't mess with it, but they could bring in unaware wastelanders and turn the damn thing on, then just watch the fun as Grandpa's version of a good idea stomped them into the ground.

Now it was hurting my friend and me, plus it was keeping that evil bitch safe... I could see her, right there. Grandpa and that cunt, playing their games, lying, manipulating...

'Let me...'

Grandpa Mobius... All his fault, everything was all his fault! Him and his friends took my Stable, ponynapped his own daughter! Stole everything from me! I caught my breath and struggled back to my hooves, the lightning flickering around me as the anger built turned dark and my eyes burned with the fires of tartarus, trying to burn a hole through that stupid barrier and turn her to ash...

"THAT"S ENOUGH!!!"

KRAKA-THOOOOM!!!

A bolt of lightning erupted from my horn, crackling up to the metal scaffolding above and filling the arena with the smell of ozone and frying circuits, things up there exploded in showers of sparks as the electricity kept pouring out, overloading the shields, causing the ghostly Rue to flicker and fade in mid strike to Swan's bruised chest. Wherever those damn crystalline emitters were hidden up there, they exploded under the onslaught, the equipment beside the surprised mare squinting against the glare popped and wailed warnings.

The shield was gone... Rue was gone... and that bitch was just sitting there in shock. I managed to make one quick check for Swan, relieved to see her on her hooves and panting. Then I lost it, launching myself at the yellow earth pony before she could follow through on the frantic thought behind those pale blue eyes, 'RUN'.

She skittered left, but my wings adjusted with unusual grace, I fell on her like a hungry bloodwing, my fangs extended and I bit those damn masks on her flank, tragedy and comedy tore away in a spray a blood and she fell to the floor. I spit the happy and sad masks out, the cutie mark of an actress, a talented one who immediately resorted to another show beneath me, while I bucked and stomped at her on the floor.

"W-Wait! It's not my... AH! f-fault! They forced me to... UNGH! d-do it! I-I'm just a poor filly from D.C.! They captured me! OW! G-Got me addicted to Dash! OUCH! T-They have my baby! I had to... OW!! P-Please don't!" The panicked bitch wailed, all her gloating when she had the upper hoof magically gone. She was actually convincing, even while I snapped and snarled at her hooves held up defensively, shutting her up with a foreleg to her throat and enjoying her choked sputtering as I hissed back in a voice that was hardly my own.

"Shut up... You lie. You're a liar, just like him... a good liar, but a liar... a... Betrayer... Now thou suffers Luna's wrath foul siren, thine punishment will be slow and painful, torments a heathen such as yourself could never imagine... Thine piddling games here will pale in comparison and thou will beg for the release of death..."

I savored watching her eyes turn to pinpricks and her dirty yellow face pale, flinching away from the gleaming starmetal knife floating up her side and drawing a long, thin line of blood down her ribs, up her neck, across her cheek... hovering over one terror filled eye. I'd pop that out eventually... but I wanted her to see for awhile yet. At least until after I skinned her...

"P-Please..." She sputtered and choked, wincing at Best Served moving over her muzzle as I shoved it up with my foreleg, my telekinesis gripping her cheeks like a vice to force them open.

"A liar deserves not a tongue to spew their falsehoods... That will be the first piece of thou I take... but not the last. Not the last by far, let us see what it tastes like, the appetizer so to speak..." The rumble coming from my mouth wasn't my voice but the Shroud's.

My burning eyes held her own and she trembled, seeming to get lost in them and the dark tortures they promised, filling her with terror 'Be Dark...' drank up like a fine wine. The soft whispers of the Ministry Mares were no match right now, nothing was going to get in its way this time, it hungered for this and wouldn't be denied again. The bruised and bloodied alicorn mare at my side merely watched with a predatory smile, here was a filly that wouldn't stop it for once! A true warrior princess to revel in blood and fire with... 'MINE...SOON...'

I grabbed the squirming pink muscle from her terrified grimace and pulled, lowering Best Served inch by inch. She shivered and bucked under me, a stomp of a foreleg enough to crack ribs as the unbending telekinetic grip held her open muzzle still...

BLAM!

The body under me jerked, the blue glow of my magic dissolving as her skull exploded with the ringing crash of a pistol, a familiar 12mm pistol...

"That right there's enough boss... Rein it in already..." Val's hard voice drew my furious gaze, standing in the doorway behind us and striding forward cautiously as I panted and ground my sharp teeth in frustration.

That bitch was 'MINE!' How dare she! How dare she take my prize away! Stop me from doing what I wanted! I hunted the evil cunt down, she was 'MINE' to punish and the sad eyed griffon took her from me! "THOU DARES..." I roared at her, making her flinch until a quiet whimper drifted from her upturned wings.

"D-Daddy?"

'Be Kind...'

Glitter!? My daughter's wide pink eyes stared from over Val's fluffy neck, a grimace of distaste at the corpse quickly replaced by worry as her ride strode forward.

The inferno of blackness and hate trying to consume my mind fizzled out as Val shoved Swan aside, raising a dark claw and slapping me, hard... "Enough dammit! Yer makin' me worry here boss! Blue ain't around ta stop ya so guessin' it's on me, so get yer head outta yer ass and straighten up dammit!"

"O-OW! Val? W-What..." I winced and rubbed my cheek, coming back to my senses and realizing just what I had worked myself up to, what I planned to do... Sweet Celestia... I lost control... again.

"Ya left me behind an look what happened dumbass! Lucky ya just said ta guard pipsqueak here, not where ta do it! Had ta go through you two's lil house of horrors ta find ya! What the hell are ya thinkin'!? And you! Ya daffy mare, ya can't let boss go all buck wild like this! He whines about it later and it ain't good fer him!" Val squawked and poked my chest with her claw, lowering a wing to let Glitter slide down and dash over as she wheeled on Swan furiously.

Glitter's warm embrace snuggling against my chest brought me back, banished 'Be Dark..' back to the dark stasis pod in my heart where it resided, her anxious whimpers made my eyes tear up and I curled around her, trying to soothe the scared filly along with myself as she cried. "I-I'm ok daddy! It's ok, d-don't... don't do bad stuff for me, I'm all better, see..."

Swan simply looked confused, giving a little ground to the angry griffon lashing her tail behind her as she jabbed and poked the big mare. "But he said he wanted her. She was bad, it's ok to smash her, red is dead. What's wrong?"

Turning an anxious look back to me nuzzling Glitter's mane and leaking tears into it, Val clucked and ran a weary claw down her face with a grumble. "Nnnngh... can't believe I'm sayin' this, but there's dead then there's too far stupid! Boss gets... a lil' too pissed off sometimes, ya can't let him go all nutty with that comic nonsense! Just kill the bitch and be done with it! Ugh, let's get back soon boss, let Blue deal with all this shit! M-Maybe get Ives back on the way, ya sorta look like ya need her..."

'Be Strong!'

I sniffled and wiped my dripping muzzle, looking up to her with bloodshot eyes and nodding my head. "I-It's ok, I'm ok, really... T-Thank you Val, I needed that... y-you saved me from..."

She interrupted and stuck her beak up in a huff, ruffling her feathers and glaring down at me. "Which is why ya need a damn bodyguard! Go orderin' me around ta stay back with the kiddies... D-Don't do that boss... I didn't like it... w-we're partners right?"

Managing to hold my blurry eyes on her worried violet ones, I gave her a determined nod and felt my ears droop remembering that furious order, I never ordered Val... "P-Partners and best friends, I'm so sorry Val... I didn't mean to... I was mad and... I love you Val, y-you're not just some bodyguard to order around. Thank you for knowing that and stopping me..."

Glitter pulled away and eyed me closely, her penetrating stare as good as her mother's at this point, which only made me feel as small as the breezie poking her head from her silver mane. "Y-You're ok now, right Daddy? All better? T-There's hurt ponies back there that need help, mommy's not here... but I took lots of potions from the fairies! C-Can we please help them now, a-and find your game thingy?"

"Scary fighting iz all dun now Shroud Fast? Ve go? Leetle pony right, hurt beeg ponies need helps, I vant to... be like Fluttershy und heal injured, make feel better... but vant yu dere, dey is beeg ponies... Yu dun being mean und scary tu fight bad beeg ponies? Yu... yu vant feel better?" Gale backed her up, fluttering her brilliant blue wings anxiously and standing fully on Glitter's head, she reached back to her little baskets and coated her hoof in sparkling, golden nectar.

I flicked my eyes up to Val, who rolled her own and nodded with a snort, giving me the go ahead as my muzzle stretched forward and slurped up the offered foreleg eagerly. Gale seemed less scared of this treatment now, giggling at the rough tongue swirling around her leg and playfully batting at it, pulling away with a relief clear on her face at the goofy look plastered on my own.

She didn't give me much, just the right amount for everything to feel a lot better, my racing heart slowing as the world took on a mellow warmth. I sighed and flapped my wings, carrying Glitter and I away from the dead mare lazily and nuzzling cheek to cheek with her. Putting the view and the focus of all that rage behind me felt even better and I felt more myself, landing with a graceless thump and shaking a little as I regained control and slowly got to my trembling hooves.

'Be Unwavering!'

Swan still sounded confused, hobbling her way over and tilting her head as I stood and blinked sleepily, curling a wing around Glitter still anxiously at my side and lazily looking up to her puffy black eye with concern as she spoke. "But what's wrong? I don't get it... You wanted that bad pony, I let you have her, I wanted to see what you'd do. It was fun fighting with you and hurting bad ponies, why is everyone worried and sad? Why'd the griffon take away your prey?"

I floated a green healing potion to Swan's bleeding lips and urged her to drink, wincing at the beating she had taken against a ghost from the past in my defense. "We... We have to be better than that Swan. Doing what I w-wanted... it's wrong, I almost did something very bad I could never take back. Val saved me by stopping me and I'm grateful to her for it, Glitter and Gale helped me remember to be better before I... They're all just watching out for me, like always huh sweetie? Let's see these hurt ponies and help them, just like mom would want right? You can be her little nurse again even if she's not here, good thinking taking lots of potions with us."

Glitter puffed up with pride and pranced out from my embrace, finally satisfied I was back to normal and beaming at the praise. "Ok daddy! There's a Minutemare we saved! An' some of the funny dressed guards from Diamond City! An some quiet pony too! They're hurt an' scared, but we'll help 'em and tell mommy all about it! She'll be so proud!"

"I know she will sweetie, let's go... Umm... just a second, let me check something real quick." I replied softly, slowly scanning the room and hanging on a complicated looking terminal that hadn't been fried.

'Awareness! It was under E!"

It was on a metal desk, one of several taking up the corner and covered in all kinds of arcano-tech parts, rotting blueprints and papers, tools and toys... several detailed toys of characters from Super Hoof Fighter, among those from a variety of other holotape games scattered about haphazardly. All of them were scooped into my saddlebags absently, my normal foal like glee at new toys slightly muted by the faded picture on the poster bedecked wall, hung in a place of honor by a dented golden trophy of a joystick.

A skeleton was carelessly tossed to the corner under it, a strange, round cap on it's skull with a bent propeller that I grabbed as well, floating it to Glitter's head to her giggles. It looked too small for the dead pony's skull anyway... just right for the filly and it was an interesting novelty. Plus it belonged to the pony in the picture, one I was intensely interested in given the other pony photographed with his foreleg around his shoulders.

The dead pony was important apparently, he had a brown coat under his casual t-shirt and jeans, and the very same beanie Glitter now wore was mostly obscured by his shaggy, two tone orange mane. There were ponies in the background in suits and lab coats, along with plenty who had his same casual appearance. They all looked to him with respect in this same corner, his workshop... He was partially responsible for this crazy holographic game.

Him and the other pony cheerfully clutching him... Even though his casual attire, scraggly orange goatee and sloppy look made him look like a fairly lax and unimportant adult, I got the idea this was his place, his company, his game. His and Grandpa Fin's... I stared long and hard at the picture, the bedraggled lab coat and natty sweater, the pale blue coat and wild grey mane and mustache, the swirly, soda bottle glasses...

'Be Dark...'

A disregarded whisper tried to rekindle my anger, but Gale's wonderful nectar and the strengthened voices of the Ministry Mares helped lock it up, tightening the chains around that black stasis pod in my head as I floated the picture down and wiped the dust away.

"Daddy....?" Glitter called up anxiously, pulling me from my thoughts to turn to her, eyeing the ancient photo like a dangerous snake.

"I'm ok sweetie, just... Here, how would you like to see your great grandpa? Take care of that for me, I... I don't want to look at it right now."

Glitter took the cracked photo frame with a happy gasp, holding it in her hooves and peering at the zany old buck in the photo with wonder. "He looks like you daddy!"

Gale landed on the photo with reverent wonder, tracing a tiny hoof on the beaming face and smiling. "Iz Professor Moby! Ve take und show tu breezies! Ve have no pictures of great pony Moby Fast, uthers vant to see and celebrate. Leetle pony right, yu like him! Both gud ponies who help breezies!"

"What?" Grandpa and I didn't look that much alike... well, maybe a little more with the new wings, but otherwise...

Val prowled over and peered over her shoulder with interest, chuckling to herself and nodding. "Yup, not much in the face er nothin' but he's got that same goofy look boss. Yer gramps can't be that bad, looks like you do when yer playin' or tinkerin' with some new toy er somethin'. C'mon, let's go crazy, lots of do-goodery ta get to. Then find me a ways inta that hub! An' all the others! Chop, chop! Move it nerd!"

I'd want to explore this interesting wonderland of my grandfather's design more later, but Val was right. Be better... the prisoners of these sadistic raiders needed help first, then we needed to do what we came for, then get back to Jade... the sooner the better.

"Right. Let's go everybody, come on Swan, I'll try to explain stuff later. Smashing the bad guys is only part of it, we gotta help the good guys."

Swan huffed and kicked at the dead mare on her way to canter over, raising an eyebrow over her healing eye and licking the blood from her soft lips, slowly becoming less puffy under the potion's effects. "Ok, I don't get it but whatever. Green is good right? This still counts as a date Fast, I let you have her..."

I winced at her sultry purr, stepping off the mat that had trapped us and noting the distance between it and the door. If we hadn't just charged in, we could have avoided the whole damn thing... Swan clearly didn't understand the problem with how close I had come, but she disregarded it in favor of her prefered topic and nickered happily beside me, swaying her flanks as I trudged back down the halls we had fought our way through.

"Yes, you did and it does count Swan. But Jade first, remember? If you want to play, we have to finish up what we're doing and get back to her."

At that she pranced ahead, the only thing she cared about answered for her as she replied merrily and hugged her new pip-buck. "Ok! Let's hurry! Red is dead! Green is keen!"

"K-Keep that murderer away from me! He really is a monster now, just like they're saying!" One of our rescued charges yelped and scrambled back in the decrepit ball pit back in the dim arcade, shrinking into the corner and waving his hooves frantically.

Monster... Maybe I was. I hung my head and peeked from under the brim of my hat at my daughters defensive shout, down in the cage with him while I sat at the lockpicked entrance. I tried to stay as far away as possible, but I wasn't leaving Glitter alone with traumatized ponies.

"T-The General's not a murderer! H-He saved us asshole!" The light blue unicorn filly shivered and looked up at me with an adoring gaze that made me a little uncomfortable, the heroic knight who saved her from this dungeon reflected in her sparkling eyes.

That one was a Minutemare, Private True Blue as she excitedly introduced herself, still frightened and her hero worship of the 'General of the Minutemares' magnified watching us destroy this place. She tried to groom her filthy tan and gold mane frantically and fell into military discipline as soon as she saw me, but was an ally at least.

"You shut up! My daddy's great! He's not a monster, he saved you stupid! Now take the healin' potion and.... hang on..." Glitter's unwavering belief in me helped a lot, I smiled at her as she turned back, ducking her head and raising a hoof to the little breezie hiding in her mane. Gale's shaking foreleg came out and smeared some of her delicious nectar on Glitter's upraised hoof, which she immediately spun back to stick in the sickly looking orange buck's face. "Lick this!"

"W-What?!" The strange request took him by surprise and diminished some of his anger and rejection.

His peach pegasus friend shot an elbow into his gut, glaring with her purple eyes under her bedraggled pink mane. "She's right, shut up Batter, lick the filly's hoof like she says."

Surprisingly he obeyed, reticently sticking his tongue out and barely making contact, but his eyes glazed and his demeanor became a lot more pleasant as soon as Gale's nectar went to work. The breezie nurse wasn't willing to put herself on display in front of the motley crew of prisoners still huddling in the ball pit, but she was helping.

With him properly sedated, Glitter dug in her little backpack and pulled out a brilliant purple healing potion, fresh from the Ministry of Peace, not some 200 year old leftover for once. She pushed it to his grasping hooves and watched him drink closely, poking and prodding at his myriad of wounds without reservation as they closed, while I stuck my tongue out in disgust. How could she be so at ease with that kind of thing? Was she learning that much from Jade?

"Thanks for that... I'm not a murderer by the way, I'm Fast Times, pleased to meet you." I tore my eyes away from Glitter's careful inspection and held a hoof out to the mare, relieved to see it cautiously returned with a curt nod.

"Line Drive, my stupid partner's Batter Up, D.C. guard patrol. Pleased to meet you too Mr. Times, or should I say Shrouded Stallion? You really are... Well, murderer or not, I'm glad you saved us. Thank you." The mare must be higher ranked than her partner judging by his obedience, she had a stronger will too, barely wincing from the ragged wounds marring her coat and her crippled wings, not as traumatized by the abuses she must have suffered either.

Val was rooting through the wreckage of the arcade nearby, lifting another broken cabinet from the ruins and dusting off the nameplate as she called over her shoulder. "Ain't you D.C. fucks a lil' far from home? Don't usually patrol out this far... Bah! This ain't one either boss! Guess that's a good thing though huh!"

Sigh... A copy of Lunar Defender... I liked that one and winced as Val let it crash to the ground, off to explore more and hope for something labeled Ministry of ------ Hero that miraculously survived. I had managed to find the dim illumination in the arcade section the raiders had turned off, allowing Val and Swan to sift through the wreckage while Glitter, Gale and I attended the raider's prisoners, but I didn't hold out a lot of hope down here.

Line Drive snorted and flinched at her broken wings trying to flutter up, we couldn't give her a potion until we did something about those, and it wouldn't be pretty... At least she was chatty as we put off the inevitable. "Yeah, the fancy nobles insisted we expand, big presence for all the guests for their stupid royal wedding..."

"Royal wedding?"

I had heard that from Miles on the radio before, even knew the bride and groom... But considering the bride was former Overmare Fancy Star, and the groom was son of the Institute's Dr. Vega, Neighson Svengallop, I hadn't thought a lot of it. Unless they went with using a synth copy, I really didn't see them getting Fancy to cooperate with their plans again. She had been worried for Neighson's safety too, so going through with it probably wasn't good for his health.

What Miss Drive answered with confirmed some of my suspicions there. "Whole thing's bullshit, nopony's seen the bride or groom for weeks! But we gotta bust our rumps for their stupid spectacle anyway. Spread out patrols and stupid here fell right into these asshole's trap, we've been here more than two days and I ain't seen any backup either.. Gonna ream General Stone's ass when we get back! Er... if we can I guess, we're not your prisoners now, are we?"

"General Fast would never take innocent prisoners! He's brave and kind and strong and..." The young Minutemare's awestruck shout of defense made my face heat up and I groaned in embarrassment, gently trying to shush her as Glitter giggled and Val outright snickered behind me.

"E-Easy Private! No, you're not prisoners, you're free to go if you want. You need a healing potion to get back I think though, and we can't give you one until we..."

"Set these... yeah I know... let's get it over with, got something for splints?" Miss Drive gave a resigned reply and stood on shaking hooves, hissing in pain as she tried to straighten her wings.

There was a wealth of junk to pick from at least, my magic reached out and selected a few splintered boards about the right size and floated them back as I hopped down into the ball pit with her, bringing out some bandages from my bags and hovering the whole production in place near her battered wings. I didn't know a lot about healing, but having a genius doctor alicorn as your special somepony tended to rub off.

"I'll be ...er... fast, honest. Ready?"

At her teary eyed nod, I wrapped her wings in my magic carefully. This much of healing I could get, it only involved telekinesis and broken parts, not much different than repair really. I focused and felt out each break and where it should go back together, then in one strong surge yanked everything back in place and slapped the boards to her outstretched wings, my stomach churning at her pained scream as I wrapped the splints tightly in place and loosed a held in breath. Ok, that part wasn't like repairing things... machines didn't scream when you put them back together.

"Oh look! It's the star thingy from home!" Swan's cheery cry cut through Line Drive's tapering ones and gave me something else to focus on thankfully.

She was floating up another blown up game, unfortunately this one did indeed bear the six pointed star of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences... shit. It didn't even look salvagable... Not the Ministry of Wartime Technology at least, but a terrible loss, who knew how many of those things there were.

"G-Good work Swan, that's one alright. Just keep looking... So Line, you two are Diamond City, the Private there is one of mine, who's the quiet one?"

Miss Drive had bit her lip hard enough to draw blood during my poor treatment, but sucked down the waiting healing potion eagerly and gasped once she had chugged it down. Sighing in relief at a vial of Med-X I jabbed in her flank, she turned her tired gaze over to the last prisoner in the corner. That one hadn't said a word beyond 'Do you have a geiger counter?' to which I answered yes of course, showing the cute rainbow gauge on my pip-buck to her brooding disappointment.

"Who knows, not exactly a chatterbox that one. So we can go? I promise to keep you being around here quiet to return the favor, not sure about Batter though..." Line Drive shrugged to the quiet pink mare hiding under her dirty blonde mane, giving me an unsure look in regards to her fellow guard.

Granted her partner looked pretty stoned and cooperative now, but I could really do without him sobering up and bringing the Diamond City guards down on our heads before I was done here. Especially if they were on high alert and spread out further than normal, potentially looking for these two as we spoke actually.

"Ummm... h-how about you guys recover a little more, I'm sure you must be starving, right? Here, we have lots of food! Just er... eat all you want for awhile, please? I just need a little time, here Private Blue, pass it all out and help my daughter, maybe we can find your gear if they didn't get rid of it, or at least give you guys some of these raider's weapons. Glitter's a great little scavenger, right sweetie?"

"Right daddy! We'll go find lots of stuff with Auntie Val, I guess they can have some. C'mon Private!" Glitter whooped and scrambled out of the caged pen, waving the Minutemare Private Blue and the rest out behind her, but keeping a close eye as she pranced over to Val rooting through the debris.

Private True Blue nearly knocked herself out saluting the little filly and me in turn, limping her way out and following the foal like she was her commanding officer. "Yes General! It's an honor to assist you and the young princess! Alright you lot, chow time! We're getting a meal from the General himself, so you can all just sit tight awhile and enjoy it!"

Val snickered as I passed, retreating from the worshipful Minutemare filly and conferring with her on my way out. "Keep an eye on them Val, we don't want to keep them captive... but I do need a little time to explore this place, there's got to be one here, or at least some clue where to find one. I gotta go do some hacking and poke around, see what I can dig up and pick over that lab upstairs better. There's stuff to be found here, but we can't let them go tattle to Diamond City before we're done."

"An' loot, right boss? There's loot in this somewheres? Yer already givin' some of it away... Ugh, alright fine. But ya ain't wanderin' around alone and goin' off the rails again... Hey! Goofy! Get yer big ass over here!" Val smirked and reminded me of her priorities, shouting over to Swan shoving heavy junk around and looking for another praise worthy discovery.

Swan trotted right over, dropping a floating billiard table with a crash behind her and blinking down at the griffon curiously. "Yes? Are we done yet?"

Grabbing her round cheeks in her claws, Val dragged Swan's face to her level and held her perplexed eyes sternly. "Listen Big Stuff, you go with the boss while he does all that borin' investigatin' type crap. It's dull as dishwater, so ya can't fuck it up. Just keep him happy an' stay quiet, no smashin' nothin', just sit with him an' guard. Don't let him go back to that crazy lab upstairs by his'self neither! Got that?"

"Guard... keep happy, stay quiet, don't leave him alone. Ok Valkyrie! That sounds fun enough, how boring could it be?" Swan mumbled around Val's pinching claws and nodded slowly, giving a grin that Val just chuckled at.

"Go find out goofy. Ok boss, I gots things handled down here, go do the tappity tap, read, read, read stuff and find me some treasures! An' no hanky panky Swany! We're in a hurry, right?" Val seemed satisfied with that much, releasing Swan so she could swat my flank and send me on my way, off for a more thorough look through what remained of Bitway Games.

Shipping Manifest Search Results---

Ministry of Image Hero -- Haymarket Hall
Ministry of Image Hero -- Fan Cooly Hall
Ministry of Arcane Science Hero -- Pious Revere Boardwalk
Ministry of Arcane Science Hero -- Spectacle Island Resort
Ministry of Awesome Hero -- Starbright Trailer Court
Ministry of Awesome Hero -- Easy Filly Downs
Ministry of Wartime Technology Hero -- Dry Book Technical High School
Ministry of Wartime Technology Hero -- Hopestrot Swap Market Fairgrounds

Ugh... Having finally found a working terminal with the information I wanted down in the warehouse area in the back of the ground floor, I groaned downloading all the uncorrupted data and map markers, scanning how dispersed they were. A few near the heart of Trotson, a few more near the shore, others spread to the four corners of the Commonwealth... Not what I hoped for.

Adding to my agitation and distracting me was the large purple alicorn nuzzling for attention and nibbling my ears in boredom. When she saw me disconnect my pip-buck from the weakly glowing terminal, Swan nickered and got more insistent, not less...

"Finally! The griffon said it was boring, but I didn't think it would be that bad! Let's play Fast!" Swan apparently listened to Val's warning, but totally disregarded her 'no hanky panky' admonishment, nipping at my neck and taking long sniffs at my mane which rose to the stimulation along with my wings.

Squeaking and scrambling out of the battered warehouse chair, I pulled away and trotted down the aisles of shelves stretching to the ceiling, towards the big unloading doors in the back and the stairs and large freight elevator leading up from there. "N-No Swan, no playing remember? We're not done yet anyway, that gave me something, but I'm still hoping to find one of these games here, not halfway across the Commonwealth. Let's check upstairs, we want one that has the Steel Rangers symbol on it, the apple and gears with the sword? Here, let's try the elevator, if they built stuff upstairs and shipped it out here, then they'd probably do the manufacturing and repair near the elevator."

Swan pouted and stayed right at my side, the big freight elevator basically the size of a normal one for the alicorn filly tilting her head down at me. "I know what that looks like, I smashed lots of those Ranger ponies for the mother. Why won't you play? I know you want to... you smelled reeeeally good while we were fighting together, you liked it as much as me! You wanted to mate, now you're trying not to again... Just like you wanted to hurt that bad pony, but now you feel bad. How come?"

"It's... How to explain this... It's self control Swan, you're really good at that right? You stay big all the time, but don't go on a rampage like Virescent did right? You don't just do everything you want and lose control, that's what I almost did... lose control."

Trying to get this across while trapped in a steel box oh so slowly clattering its way up was not the best idea... Not only would the stairs have been faster, they weren't a confined space the pheromones from my mane so easily filled. Swan's eyes sparkled and she prowled forward with a purr, pressing me against the wall near the lift controls and giving a long kiss, much improved with a lot of practice. Well... I did say she could do that much anytime she wanted...

"I don't lose control, but that doesn't mean I pretend I don't like what I like Fast. You like fighting, you're good at it! I was impressed, I liked fighting down here with you, it made being tiny not as bad even! Just like this kissing thing! You like that too..." Swan fluttered her eyelashes and got a mischievous grin, moving quickly to take advantage of the privacy and her captive partner.

She wrapped her forelegs around my flanks and groped my rump firmly, slamming me to the steel wall and lifting me to her level to press into another long, deep kiss that made my wings splay out against the wall and ache. When she finally broke it off she was all the way up to pink bands flashing in her irises, pressing her warm body against my weakening struggles with a lusty giggle.

'More...'

"S-Swan! Easy! Jade first, I do like it... er... a lot actually, t-though I guess that much is obvious..." I gasped and turned red in her grasp, drawing her attention to the other clear reaction between us with an embarrassed whimper.

Blinking in confusion, Swan wiggled in place and looked down curiously, making my traitorous body's none too subtle response to her forceful seduction even more apparent. It took her a minute... Alicorns were only females before, I supposed Swan especially wouldn't know much about males... She got the idea quickly however, her sparkling eyes widening and a wide grin stretching her muzzle.

"See! You want to play! Why fight so hard against what you want? Sister Jade won't mind, you want to, I want to, it's not losing control just doing what you want, only when you do it and you don't want to!" Swan was getting into this way too much, her big hooves squeezing my rear and shoving me against her, kissing and nuzzling as she spoke huskily.

"No! Swan, please stop... I do want to, but I don't want to. That is losing control like you said, doing something I don't want, even if I want to in the moment. I'm not pretending I don't want to with you... I do, I reeeeeally do. T-Though I guess I sorta am when it comes to what I wanted to do to that bitch upstairs, but not all of me wanted that. Only a small part did, if I let it win, I'd be losing control, going on my own rampage. I really don't want that, I'm scared of it."

At the quaver in my voice, Swan slowly let me go, kissing my horn and sticking her nose up dismissively. "You shouldn't be, I liked it! You sound like those sisters who got too many jumbled thoughts and souls from unity in them Fast. It was fine to hurt that bad pony, she deserved to be punished. She would have killed you and niece Glitter if she could, why feel bad doing what you want to a bad pony?"

Finally, the door gave a warbling ding and let us out, a little slightly fresher air clearing both our heads as I tried to answer. "What I wanted to do to her was no different that what she and her friends were up to here. If that made them bad, it would make me bad too Swan. I have to be better than that, we have to be better, even if it's harder, even if we want to be worse, it's the struggle against those kinds of things that makes us more than just... savages I guess."

"Sometimes I need help not losing control like that, I count on Jade and Glitter, Val and Ivy... all my friends to help me, just like I'm counting on you now too. Jade told me when you guys absorb so much radiation you get giant like you normally are, you have a tendency to fall to your base impulses, but you don't right? You stay in control, that's what I'm trying to do too. I was actually hoping you could teach me..."

At least she looked to give that some serious thought, looking up to the moldy ceiling as we trotted down the bloodied hallways, taking a more thorough inventory and finding lots of interesting repair and manufacturing rooms full of parts I scooped up. I was getting hopeful passing several arcade cabinets in varying states of assembly and shelves of holotape games scattered everywhere, come on... a little break here goddesses...

"I guess I understand... I get to do what I want when I'm big though, maybe not as much as I want, but I do and I don't pretend I don't like it. I like being big and strong, I like protecting, I like smashing. It gets harder when you can't as much as you like, all those new ponies back home... I have to work a lot harder now to be good. Is it like that Fast?" Swan finally seemed to relate to my struggles, sharing her own I could instantly sympathize with.

"Just like that Swan. You don't want to hurt them or be bad, but it's hard sometimes right? You're right, I shouldn't pretend I don't want those things, but some I'm honestly disgusted to find out I do want. Some I only want to when I'm mad and a... a bad part of me takes over, some I think I only want so much because of what the potion that changed me did to my body, and now I have to wonder what all might be because my own Grandpa screwed with my brain. I'm really scared I'm crazy Swan, trying to stick to a set of rules and beliefs... it helps keep me sane. Doing what I wanted to that mare is bad, doing what I want with you right now would break a promise to Jade. I have to try to be the pony I think I should be, not just fall and revel in everything I want."

Hearing the shaky fear in my voice, Swan finally seemed to really get it. She stepped closer cautiously and nuzzled my cheek, not trying for more for once, just wrapping a wing over me for a hug to comfort and console and speaking softly. "You are not crazy or bad Fast, you're fun and good, I like you. I will help you not go on a rampage if that's what you want, a-and I'll wait.... I guess... If you promised sister Jade, you keep your promises right? Just like you promised me! If you try so hard to keep the one to her, I feel good you'll keep the one to me. Eventually.... I don't like waiting though. I guess you shouldn't soak up a lot of radiation and grow with me when I find some for now though, it will be a lot harder to stay in control for you. That's a shame..."

"Thank you Swan, thanks a lot. I like you too and hearing you say that makes me feel a lot better. Er... the getting bigger thing is less of a concern actually though, I don't get any bigger Swan. Though I do have other... umm... side effects, and it's usually not a good idea, it does get harder to stay in control..." I blushed at the thought and was glad my rainbow colored radiation gauge was safely in the green, pushing open the next door labeled 'Manufacturing Room 5' as Swan sputtered behind me.

"You don't!? But... I wanted to... awwww... Well, I guess that's ok, I do like you cute and small like when we met. Still, I had lots of things I wanted to do... I'll have to think of others now, hmmm..." Swan's muttering as we entered the room together made me gulp, at least she didn't have an actual list like Peri, but who knows what she had been hoping for or what she'd come up with now...

The flickering yellow glow of the lights weakly coming to life filled me with relief and banished a lot of the worry hanging over me still, there in the corner was a tall cabinet with a large apple symbol stenciled on the side, three gears within it and a winged sword thrust through it from above. Ministry of Wartime Technology Hero stared back at me, the screen even glowed to life with the lights!

Mission Updated: From Within

Objectives---
--Investigate Bitway Games HQ
--Find Ministry of Wartime Technology Hero arcade cabinet
--Beat MoWT Hero Game
--Gain access to MoWT Hub

I gave a whoop of elation along with the fanfare from my pip-buck and fluttered up to Swan, planting a long, happy kiss on her before swooping over to inspect our find and giving thanks to the goddesses for their blessings. Swan gave a pleased whinny and pranced after me, tilting her head at the boot up screen curiously over my head, before shrugging and returning to her idle affection to fill the time.

"This is the thing you wanted Fast? Do you want me to take it? I can teleport it out of here for you." Swan's long pink mane spilled down my shoulder as she nuzzled at my cheek, sizing up the tall cabinet and offering up her skills to get it out of here easily.

After making a quick inspection and making sure it really was as intact and immaculate as it looked, I dug in my bags for a prewar bit and fed it into the slot. The 'Press Start Button' message flashed as I tipped my hat back and stretched my forelegs out, cracking my neck back and forth before leaning in, enveloping the controls with my magic with a determined look.

"First thing's first Swan. Let's see just how hard this game is. It's for the MoWT, machines and arcano-tech... I'm betting they wanted to recruit ponies like me, let's see if I'm MoWT material or not..."

I grinned at the prompt and hit the button, something actually went right for once! Things got a little rough there, but now they were looking up. I had Swan at my side and was making progress with her, Val watching my back for me and my daughter there to keep my grounded, even little Spring Gale was enjoying her adventure out in the beeg pony world. I could actually relax somewhat and focus on the next step, playing a videogame that wasn't trying to kill me.

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

Empathy----------
---Spending so much time with a telepath has improved your admitedly poor social skills. You're still not great at figuring other ponies out, but you have a better idea when something's wrong and new dialogue options!

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

Button Mash's Beanie--------
---The silly propeller hat of a long ago gaming master conveys some of his skills, anypony who could be the Equestria wide champion of Super Hoof Fighter knows a thing or two about fighting, even if they're not a zebra master like Zed! You gain +10 to the Hoof to Hoof skill.