"How's it going Commonwealth! This is DJ Traveling Miles joining you on another bright day in our little slice of the wasteland, a chilly one at that so be sure to bundle up out there! Raiders and mutated monsters might be a lot more obvious dangers to your health, but pneumonia will make you just as dead if you're not careful!

So, a little news before we get back to the music! First off, a word from our benevolent leadership here in Diamond City. Our nobles want to assure everypony the grand royal wedding is still on, despite the fact the bride and groom have disappeared. According to them they're on a goodwill tour outside of the Great Green Jewel, inviting everypony to witness their upcoming nuptials.

Of course the latest issue of Publick Occurences hot off the presses in Sanctuary from our favorite intrepid hometown reporter, gives us a different view my listeners can choose to believe or not. According to her, the bride, Miss Fancy Star herself is out there causing havoc as one half of the Pale Pair catching everyone's attention on the coast! Most D.C. residents who've seen the mare around town know she happens to have a white griffon in her employ, lending some credence to them being the infamous heroes causing a significant supply problem for every drug dealer in Trotson. Why would a well to do mare on her way to the altar be wiping out drug dens left and right? Cold hooves maybe? Decide for yourselves dear listeners, let's all see what happens when the blessed date finally comes up!

In other news, if you've noticed a lack of badass mercenaries taking contracts in the Commonwealth lately, it's for good reason. Seems like the Gunners are pulling back to their strongholds in the south, not as interested in taking contracts for caps versus dealing with a regular insurrection in their backyard. More than a few ponies I've talked to in the Dugout Inn have worried about the mercenary company and what they've been up to down south, when they outright took Whinny a few smart ponies started wondering how bold that would make them and what they'd do next.

Seems like those bets were dead on the money in this DJs opinion, and I'm not the only one! After hearing what all my famous colleague DJ Pon3 has spotted in their territory, and his own direct knowledge of wasteland despots with delusions of grandeur, I have to admit I'm a little worried they'll just roll right over the rest of the Commonwealth with what's shaping up to be an army!

Of course I'd be more worried were it not for everypony's favorite dark hero! That's right, the Shrouded Stallion is out there giving them hell, protecting the rest of us in the process! Some ponies here in D.C. might still think he's just a murderer, but if it weren't for him and the Minutemares, the ponies of Jamocha Plains might not be around to sing a different tune! Seems the Gunners decided to pull another Whinny masacre and take direct control of the small trading hub, only to be beaten back by the Shroud, his Minutemares and even some alicorns who jumped into the fray! The Gunners better hope they haven't made an enemy of the mares of Trinity Tower, or their little campaign may have gotten a lot harder!

We'll keep you updated on all this as more dear listeners, just keep your heads down and stay safe out there. Here's a little Sweetie Belle to keep you company."

Bitway Games Inter-office mail #0012
Subject: Sweet Funding!

I've never seen so many zeroes!! Can you believe it!? The new offices are great, plenty of room for everypony and Mr. Mash got to set up his own arcade downstairs, Ministry contracts are crazy! To think we were just a startup coding away in our basements a few months ago, now we're getting paid to make games for the Ministries!

I don't know who Mr. Mash's contact is, still surprised when he brought him around after the fighting game tournament. Thought the crazy old buck was a little long in the tooth to reach the finals against Button, finding out he had that kind of pull with the Ministries though... Just who is Doc Mobius anyway?

Bitway Games Inter-office mail #0015
Subject: Re: Sweet Funding!

Don't ask Twitch, just be grateful the weird old Doc took a liking to Mr. Mash. Anypony with that kind of influence wants to be all mysterious and throw bits at us, you shut the fuck up and don't ask questions. Just be sure to let the employees downstairs know, Doc Mobius plays for free and has run of the place when he stops by, send him straight up to Button's lab and let them get up to... whatever it is they do up there.

Bitway Games Inter-office mail #0057
Subject: This Tech!

Have you seen what they've been unloading from all those crates!?! Mr. Mash was beside himself, turned on the demo with that crazed look in his eyes. Holograms!?! Weird enough the Doc has access to that kind of technology, but shouldn't shit like that be like... top secret, M.o.W.T. or M.A.S. type stuff?! But he brought it here, to make games!? I know you said keep my mouth shut Coin, but this kinda thing is hard not to talk to somepony about! If it works... we're gonna be so freaking rich!

Bitway Games Inter-office mail #0073
Subject: Stop the gossip

Just an update after our unfortunate workplace related accident the other day during the trial run of Project Oculus. Twitch Stream is fine, eager to get back to work and he wants to assure everypony it looked a lot worse than it was. Apparently neither Mr. Mash or Doc Mobius really considered what a translation of certain programming would do to a pony in real life...

Employees are reminded of their non disclosure agreements some ponies might have forgotten in the excitement. Anypony who wants can visit or send cards to Fillyton General, or wait for his welcome back party when he's released from the hospital.

Bitway Games Inter-office mail #0079
Subject: New Hires

After some consideration in the wake of our trial run the other day, we've decided on a discrete ad for help wanted in the Trotson Flugelhorn. Without getting into specifics, we're looking for combat veterans with experience hoof to hoof. There's plenty of unemployed hardcases from the war, might look into hiring one of those stripes up in Neighlem as an outside consultant too, they've definitely got the kind of skills needed and it's good PR for the company.

Disconnecting my pip-buck from the latest terminal got an impatient whinny from the large purple alicorn behind me, Swan stopped spinning in the creaking office chair, her long neck craning over the back to stare at me upside down with a frustrated snort.

"Are you finally done doing boring things Fast? All this reading is so dull, I want to play! Or fight more! Or find radiation somewhere... Anything but read, read, read! I thought you just had to play that dumb game and we were done!" Swan whined and drummed her hooves against the floor, clearly at the end of her patience.

"Sorry Swan, this is important though. My Grandpa was here... I need to know." I sighed back and stretched, still sore from taking Bitway Games HQ from the devious raiders that had infested it, and now with a definite crick in my neck from what had admittedly been a lot of hacking and bending over terminals and games for the last hour or more.

Walking out of the cluttered office got her to bounce out of the battered old chair and prance at my side, a bundle of energy with no outlet, building as she had followed my slow progress through the second and third floors of the prewar business. I did tell her she could help Val and Glitter with the raider's former prisoners, or look for the ones outside who had barred the door when the sprung their trap, but Swan wanted to go where I went, regardless of how boring it ended up being. Not that it stopped her from whining about it as I worked, but she eventually got the idea the more she pestered me, the longer it would take.

Ministry of Wartime Technology Hero ended up being a challenge. Mainly because it covered a range of skills, not just technology knowledge. One part was easy, a simple puzzle game where you completed a circuit before time ran out and magical power went down the path you built from various tiles. Like Jade's surgery simulator, it was simplified to make it fun, but it was essentially just completing circuits with the parts available, using signal boosters, logic gates, flux regulators, etc to reach the goal. A simple enough matter for me to finish flawlessly.

It was the other parts that tripped me up, a first person shooter that simulated piloting a suit of Steel Ranger armor. I did like the customization involved, you could improve your suit and change your weapon loadout, but it was in essence a shooter.

It wasn't too hard considering how much real world experience I now had, though my enemies tended to be ponies more often than the cartoonishly evil zebras the game put forth. Eventually I beat the vile Caesar on the final stage, earning a screen like Jade had achieved on Ministry of Peace Hero to my relief;

"Congratulations! You are a Steel Ranger in the making!! Enter your name to notify the nearest Ministry of Wartime Technology hub of your amazing skills, join the M.O.W.T. and defend Equestria from the zebra menace! Better wiped than striped! Thanks for playing a Bitway Games production, try our other 'Ministry Hero' games today!"

I checked over the advanced arcade cabinet after reaching the blinking screen, assured that it was intact and had sent some kind of signal out through the compact communications equipment hidden in its bowels. That done and our rescued prisoners recovering and taking a meal with the others in a second floor break room, I had excused myself to investigate more thoroughly.

Wandering the halls with Swan and poking around every active terminal I found was a grim reminder of the rampage we had gone on. Most of it was a blur, but the evidence left behind made my stomach churn. Swan was like a force of nature, even down at normal alicorn size, and she wasn't responsible for all of it... Some of those bloody and dismembered corpses we passed by were all me.

Not that my attractive companion was bothered in the slightest, the only real thought Swan gave to all the dead raiders was how their blood spattered her sexy Alicorn Angel costume with even more gore. Unlike Jade she didn't know mundane spells like cleaning magic, leaving her a little annoyed as she liked her outfit Glitter had made for her. Apparently she had worn it since Nightmare Night, taking advantage of the size adjustment spells Sassy Saddles imbued it with.

She had certainly practiced that sway to her flanks swishing the short pink skirt as she trotted at my side... "Do you want to play now that you're finally done Fast? That would make up for being so boooooring..."

"Nnnn N-Not yet Swan, Jade first. Sorry you were bored, but I learned a little and it's important to me."

The big filly stuck her lip out in a pout as we made our way to the others in the dusty break room, but shook it off soon enough. She kept right on asking, but wasn't quite as insistent at getting her way after our talks. She did make her displeasure known though, snorting derisively at my concerns.

"More about this Grandfather pony... What are grandfathers anyway Fast? Why does this one bother you so much?" Swan tilted her head questioningly, the subject of any family beyond a mother always seemed to confuse her and her sisters.

"Parents of your parents Swan. Mobius... Grandpa Fin is my mom's father. Grandparents usually have a role in their grandkid's lives, it depends on the family, but they usually mean something. I liked Grandpa Fin, he was funny and played with me... I thought I knew him, but he lied... I never knew anything about him really. Anything I can find out about him fills in all those things I don't know, he was here, so I wanted to learn anything I could."

Swan looked to contemplate my answer a long while, furrowing her brow in thought before brightening with a gasp. "Parents parents... So the mother's parents would be my grandparents? I have some too!?"

That was actually an interesting question... From what Jade told me, the Goddess was made up of hundreds of ponies, but only one was truly in charge, the great and powerful Goddess. How would you even figure something like Swan's grandparents? Would they be the parents of the infamous Goddess? Or Twilight Sparkle's since she was the template for all the purples? Or would it be the grandparents of whoever Swan used to be?

"You probably had some too Swan, yes." I settled for the simple answer, glad to see the broad smile and little prance she gave.

Her cheery demeanor only got happier the more she absorbed it, nuzzling at my cheek excitedly as she burbled. "When we have foals, your parents will be their grandparents? And when they have children of their own, we will be their grandparents?!"

"Er... y-yeah Swan, you got the idea..." I gulped under her sparkling stare, like most things, Swan was pretty direct about her plans...

"Then we will find your parents like you want, then our children will have grandparents!" Swan beamed and nodded smartly, the matter settled in her mind.

As far as she was concerned, we were having foals, plural... and we would find my parents, period. While I admired her optimism and truly wished what she said would come true, I couldn't bring myself to be as absolutely certain of that fact anymore.

"I hope so Swan... Of course I don't know what the hell I'll say when I bring you home to meet the parents... especially if you're too big to fit in the house. I think my dad would just pass out if he saw you, though mom would probably like you. After they both get over f-four of you... jeez... I am going to get an earful if... w-when they do find out..." My shaky answer made her positively giddy as we entered the break room and joined the others.

The raider's prisoners looked marginally better after getting some food in their bellies and letting Glitter's stock of healing potions work. Of course I had a good idea that the little breezie hiding with my daughter had contributed to their meal by how relaxed they all seemed, a little nectar went a long way to helping traumatized ponies.

The two Diamond City guards had found their odd sporting equipment armor and dressed to go, sitting at the bent old table and giving an impatient look when I walked in. The higher ranking pegasus, Line Drive, had been kind enough to give me time, knowing that when they went back, they were obliged to report they had been saved by a wanted criminal.

Private True Blue looked the best, retrieving her own battered Minutemare armor from the heap of discarded gear from far too many victims, dumped in a pile in an unused closet in the arcade. Her rich brown eyes were wide and sparkling under her jaunty tan hat, nervously picking at her matching coat and bedraggled mane at my approach and saluting sharply.

The last prisoner sat alone in the corner, dressed in a tattered pink coat a bit darker than her fur, with a fuzzy sock hat over her blonde mane. Whether that was what she was wearing when captured or not was anypony's guess, she still hadn't said more than a few words, even to Glitter.

"We happy boss? Can we get movin' already?" Val tipped her beer bottle back from her seat near the door, simultaneously looking relaxed and innocent, while also giving the impression of an immovable guard in case any of our rescued guests felt like leaving early.

Pulling one of the battered old chairs from the table with a screech, I hopped up and pulled a few dirty sheets of paper from my saddlebags with a nod. "Almost Val, need to write a few notes for a our friends. Can you take a letter to General Stone when you go back Miss Drive?"

The peach pegasus peered across the table at my rapid scribbling, raising a curious eyebrow. "The General? Sure I guess, gonna give him a piece of my mind for spreading us out so far anyway. What does a wanted murderer want with the leader of the D.C. Guard anyway Mr. Shroud?"

"I'm not a murderer... I tried to tell General Stone that before I er... broke out of jail... There are things he should know about the nobles he works for. Plus I told him I'd try to clear my name, I have made some progress there, whether he believes me or not."

Glitter stamped her hooves as I folded the short letter and hoofed it over, glaring up at the amused mare. "My Daddy's not a bad guy! He didn't kill that stupid noble pony, so stop saying he did!"

Private Blue was right on her heels, snorting defensively and nodding. "The General was framed! There's no way he did what he's accused of, he saved you didn't he!?"

Guard Drive held her hooves up in surrender and took the offered note, shrugging back to the two of them. "Easy, just saying how it will be taken, not that I believe it now either. After seeing all that... if we held you in our jail, I'm just glad you didn't fight your way out, like a real murderer would... I'll take it to him Shroud, I promise."

Lowering my voice to a conspiratorial whisper and leaning close, I eyed her blissfully unaware fellow guard significantly. "I'd keep it under your hat too. Don't let anypony know if you can avoid it, and reading it might be hazardous to your health. It's something he should know, but dangerous, ok?"

The commander of Diamond City's guard might not believe me, but the fact he was taking orders from the Institute through the Svengallop family was something he should at least be aware of. If they were still insisting on this royal wedding of theirs, then Vega was behind it, working his public relations magic on the ponies of D.C. and beyond. General Stone struck me as a good pony, he cared about those under his protection and wasn't just a hired thug under the noble's hoof. But a straight arrow like him was in danger with the Institute watching over his shoulder.

Returning to my next scrap of paper, I wrote quickly and glanced up to Private Blue. Just that was enough to make her wiggle in her seat anxiously, that adoring look of hero worship still making me uncomfortable, even while it caused my mane to itch in response to a lovestruck female.

"One for you too Private. I hoped to send this out in Jamocha Plains, but we had to leave early... Take this as far up the chain of command as you need to, get a ride to Castle Equinox or send it ahead, Val will give you some caps for whatever you need. Send some troops here to set up an outpost here too, there's stuff I want here... Preston said I could promote whoever I wanted, so congratulations Lieutenant Blue, it's your post if you want it, or you can stick with Preston after you deliver that and I'll see you soon."

The young mare knocked her hat off saluting with a squeal, even that was insufficient and she grabbed my hoof in a jittering hoofshake that tried to shake me out of my seat, standing up in her seat to lean across the table with her rump stuck up in the air and her tail flicking excitedly.

"Y-Yes General! Thank you sir! I'll do a good job, I swear! It's an honor! I can't believe a filly from Hangmare's Alley could end up serving the General of the Minuemares directly! T-Thank you! I'll report to General Gardens at the Castle lickety split!" Her eyes were huge and dark as she gushed, the pupils wide pools sparkling with tiny hearts as she frantically kept right on shaking me to Val and Glitter's snickers.

"E-Easy! It's ok, I know you'll do great! Just do your best, but take care of yourself first, don't push ok?"

Muffling her laughter, Val peeled the excited mare away by grabbing her collar and hoisting her back, thumping her into her seat again with a smirk as she reluctantly started counting out caps "Didn'tcha do enough snoopin' around boss? What'cha want with this place now? Did you find that er... thing you was lookin' for?"

Val knew enough to keep what we were after quiet, checking over her weapons and clearly as ready to go as Swan nodding beside her. I shrugged back and gathered my stationary, looking over to the quiet mare in the corner and wondering what to do about her, I couldn't write a letter for her and she didn't want anything to do with us... I'd have to ask Lt. Blue to keep an eye out for her I supposed, we did need to get going.

"Yeah Val, I found it. Plus a few other things of interest, we don't have time to pick over every bit or clean stuff up though, so I'm leaving that to the Minutemares. But Mobius was involved with this place, so I want-"

I was interrupted by a shrill scream from our quiet companion, the pink mare in the corner looked up with a terrified expression, her golden eyes were pinpricks glaring back at me. "NO! Oh no, no, no! Why did you say that!?!"

"Umm... What?"

She jumped up in a panic, running to the door and stopped by Val's claw barring the way out. The strange mare pranced in place desperately, trying to duck past her and jabbering. "The forbidden one! You named him!! The failsafe is still working!! You can't say that name!!"

"Name? Who? You mean... Mobius?"

My confusion was being eclipsed by dawning curiosity as she screeched at the word, flinching and holding her hooves to her head like I had struck her. Val kept her in place and raised an interested eyebrow my way, waiting for orders one way or the other as I approached her cautiously.

"It's ok... calm down. How do you know that name? What's wrong with saying it?" I tried to speak soothingly, placing a tentative hoof on her shaking back.

She wheeled on me at the contact, grabbing my collar and shaking me forcefully, which only earned Val's ire as her big pistol came out in a flash. Her terrified shout in my face made me wave my mercenary friend off though. "They're coming!! I have to get out of here! NOW!"

At my nod, Val let her dash out the door, letting me follow at a run as she sprinted down the hall, past the empty offices and repair rooms, heading for the stairs near the outer wall and the dirty windows there. She ran right to the nearest view out, standing on her hindlegs and plastering herself against the filthy glass with a wail.

My mouth dried up as I caught up, even before I hit the window, Eyes Forward Sparkle started filling with red marks... My ears flicked at a strange 'zap!' sound drifting in along with more red marks appearing from nowhere. I wiped a clear streak through the glass and peered out, feeling like someone bucked me in the gut at the view outside.

The streets were filling with pale Gen 1 synths... All of them armored in gleaming white Institute gear and armed with plastic cased magical energy weapons. As I watched, another 'zap!' noise rang out and half a dozen more were teleported to the ruins below. At the center of this latest group was a pale unicorn with a jet black mane, wearing a dark leather longcoat and sunglasses with a heavy M.E.W. battlesaddle.

The way that one stared passively up at the window we peeked out of filled me with a sense of dread, only strengthened by the strangled cry the frightened pink mare beside me gave as she whimpered. "No... A Courser... they sent a Courser..."

"Seeking target, search pattern alpha... Unit B2-80! Surrender yourself for retrieval and reformatting immediately!" Toneless synthetic voices blared out below us with a crash, the front doors flung open and red marks spreading out in my vision.

"No, no, no, no! Why did you have to say that!!" The strange pink mare dashed away from the windows, running for the back of the building as I followed in a rush.

Chasing her past where Glitter, Val, Swan and the others watched in confusion, I yelped to them on her heels. My sharp hearing caught the squeal of metal below us and more red filled E.F.S. from the rear of Bitway Games HQ, the synths had breached the loading doors in the back too... They were swarming the building from the ground floor, after this mare?

"Val! Swan! Get Glitter and the rest out of here! The roof, quick!"

Val squawked in protest as I ran by, unhappy at the rushed order while I tried to catch the frantic mare that apparently brought all this down on our heads. No time though, they needed to get clear before the army of synths that appeared from nowhere got up here, and I couldn't let that mare get away. She had answers... Mobius, saying his name is what set her off, I had to know why.

Skidding around a corner after her, a trio of pale synths were cresting the stairs she just passed. They were focused on the pink mare running by, giving me a chance to draw the Terrible Shotgun and activate S.A.T.S. on the run. Being generous with the spell charge let me shred the robots and send them spilling back the stairs, floundering in place with their legs blown off and large rents in their plastic hides. Hopefully that would present a blockade to the others I could hear climbing up behind them.

I caught up to the mysterious mare scrambling at a tall rear window, shoving with her hooves and magic desperately to open it, before simply grabbing a broken office chair and flinging it through the glass. She leapt right through after it, cutting her hide badly on the jagged shards and seeming not to notice or care, clattering out to the rickety fire escape in a rush.

"Hey! Wait! What's going on! Hold on and let me..." I shouted after her, forced to flap up and barrel through the window after her, trusting my magical armor to protect me.

"Have to go! Have to get away! Can't let it catch me!" The mare jabbered in terror, galloping down the rusty cage and making the whole production shake ominously, while she bucked the folding stairs down to the junk filled alley below.

I was in the process of climbing over the bent fencing of the fire escape to simply glide down and cut her off, caught with my hindlegs scrambling over the barrier when a cold, commanding voice issued from the end of the alley. "Unit B2-80! Cease your useless attempts at escape and submit to retrieval!"

It was the pale pony in the heavy black leather coat, the dark sunglasses glaring up at us were as implacable as that stern voice. Considering he had half a dozen Gen 1 synths galloping up behind him, I was fairly certain he was a synth too and therefore fair game. The mare totally ignored his harsh orders anyway, tumbling down the ladder in her haste to get away.

Vengeance and the Terrible Shotgun snapped up in my magic, firing wildly at the synth in charge and the cruder models charging into the fray behind him. The heavy slugs and .45 rounds tore satisfying holes through the clunky Gen 1s, but that pale pony dodged and rolled behind a rusty dumpster. The heavy gatling M.E.W. battlesaddle at his flank spun up and poured blue beams out, not even aiming at me, but blasting the groaning fire escape and the wall in a spray of fire.

The whole tired construct couldn't take the strain, having ponies use it at all was pushing it, but the rain of fire blasting the wall and twisted steel finally broke it free after 200 years of hanging on. Metal squalled and screeched as it tore loose, bricks and loose beams raining down as the whole thing came crashing down on our heads.

The alley was choked with dust when it finally settled out, leaving me groaning under a pile of junk. Trying to move was a horrible idea, the sharp, torn edge of a ladder pierced my side and pinned my left wing, skewering the appendage in a puddle of blood.

Looking around woozily from under the pile of scrap metal on my head, I spotted the pink mare tugging her way free from under a section of brick wall that pinned her hindlegs. She looked like she'd happily tear the trapped legs off if it would get her away, but was making progress anyway by ignoring the damage she was doing to herself.

"You will be retrieved and interrogated B2-80, cease your struggles and submit. Where is Dr. Vigil?" That cold voice rang out behind me, the synth... the one she called Courser, it was coming up the alley to retrieve her... The bastard was ignoring me...

A rain of red magical energy weapons fire poured down from above the alley and forced him to stop his slow advance, Val's furious screech echoing off the narrow walls from her perch on the roof along with them. "Dammit boss! I'ma coming ya stupid bastard! Just hang on!"

"Daddy! Get up!!" Glitter's yell from her frightened head popping over the edge above helped get me moving 'Be Unwavering!', her and the other weak and injured prisoners were up there, in danger...

Dragging my weapons back to me and focusing on the mare yanking herself loose, I spread a field of my strongest telekinesis out, pouring power into my horn in a layer of overglow. The Courser could use all this ruin to his advantage, so could I...

I roared to disguise a scream of pain as the ladder puncturing my side was lifted with everything else, a wall of brick and steel swirled up in my magic as I shakily got to my hooves, twisting my head to fling the whole floating mass down the alley. Brick, sharp scraps of rusty steel, big chunks of fallen fire escape, trash cans, everything went in a storm of junk raining down on the synth bastard.

The multiplying Gen 1 synths were decimated, crushed or impaled by the rush of ruin slamming into them. That bastard Courser was spooky though, dodging through it all like he was dancing, vaporizing the section of wall that had been pinning the mare with his battlesaddle as I turned back to her.

She was already running again!? Hobbling down the alley and picking up speed, forcing me to go limping after her. On the plus side, the synths were after her and her alone, wherever she went they went... meaning Glitter was safer if they were drawn off by her escape. The fact it was the mention of my grandpa that started all this had me obsessed though, she had answers... I couldn't let her get away either, or let this Courser asshole catch her.

"I-I'm ok sweetie! Stay down! Val! Get her and the others clear! I'll handle this one!"

The furious griffon lobbed several 25mm grenades down to the end of the alley and glared, biting her tongue before turning back sharply. The building was still swarming with red marks on E.F.S., not giving her a lot of options, blue M.E.W. beams sketched the sky overhead before another explosion from her grenade machinegun cut them off. "I'll be right back dammit! Don't get yerself killed before then boss!"

No choice, I wove my wave after the pink mare, stumbling and dragging my bleeding wing behind me. I sucked down a green tinted healing potion on the run, each breath a burning knife in my side that was all too slowly knitting together. I turned down the next narrow alley and spotted her scrambling over a rusty brown chainlink fence barring the way, her bleeding legs slowly healing on their own.

"H-Hey! Wait! Dammit!" I croaked after her, tossing a pair of mines to the litter strewn alley behind me and picking up speed as my breathing got a little easier.

My wing wouldn't cooperate... still flopping uselessly at my side, it would need more healing potion or radiation, not something I had time for. I couldn't fly over the fence the mare finally crested and leapt off of, but I could go through it. Best Served floated out in my wobbly magic, a little overtaxed lifting all that debris and flinging it, but steady enough to send the starmetal blade ahead of me.

A few flickering slashes sliced through the barrier, returning to my mouth just in time for a stream of blue M.E.W. fire to send me skittering through the gap. That freaking Courser made it through and was moving at a steady run, the sudden beeping of one of my mines made him instantly leap to the side, bouncing off the brick wall just ahead of the explosion. Clever bastard...

So was I though, I put two down for a reason... He landed back in the alley and almost stepped directly on it, the previous explosion enough to set its steady beep, beep, beep timer off during his agile dodge. To his credit, he rolled to the ground instantly, reducing the damage he was going to take, but not avoiding it entirely. Just to keep his head down, I sent half a dozen shotgun slugs his way as I ran on, popping out to the street and looking around frantically for the escaping mare.

There! A flash of pink and blonde, running down the broad highway going down a steady slope, heading towards a dark maw of a tunnel that went under the Trotson ruins around us. A weak flap sent me over the crumbling concrete highway divider and to the angled roadway, stumbling my way around the rusting hulks of dead carriages that littered the path.

More mines were tossed in my wake haphazardly, a stream of blue beams forcing me to duck behind the steel husks growing thicker and more cluttered as I approached the gaping tunnel ahead. There was the mare's dirty tail, flicking frantically as she climbed over a delivery wagon on its side, part of a wall of dead vehicles choking the tunnel entrance.

Dammit! I would yell at her to slow down, but the hardcase in the leather coat kind of argued against that, forcing me to speed up as well as I was able. Another ungainly flap was a little stronger, sending me up out of the path of more blue beams fired from the courser's battlesaddle as he charged down the highway, leaping from vehicle to vehicle and avoiding my mines like they were an annoyance.

Discovered Location: Maud Pie Tunnel West blinked as I crashed into the leaning delivery cart with a hollow bong, shoving the pink rear scrambling for purchase ahead of me through to the tunnel. That done, I turned back to our pursuer and brought out the Last Minute, alright smarty pants... think you're so slick dodging mines... let's see you dodge this.

S.A.T.S. gave very low odds to hit the fucker with anything, but switching targets to one of the mines he was so nimbly avoiding gave much better chances. Time resumed at the gauss rifle started whining, the flat crack of a high speed slug detonated a mine right under his hooves, sending him flying to crash against another wreck and be met with the sweet sound of 'beep beep beep...', the next mine going off before he could drag himself up and get too far.

Squinting against the firestorm he was lost in, I didn't like the fact his red mark on E.F.S. hadn't gone out... Another even louder explosion made me flinch as one of the wrecked carriages went up in a huge fireball, my pip-buck chattering crazily. Another followed from a rusting old Thundega chariot pinwheeling through the air from the force of its power supply going up.

The roaring fire was spreading, some of my earlier dodged mines were cooking off too, blowing up more wrecks in a string of deadly dominos that was steadily making its way towards the tunnel, and the powderkeg in the shape of a pile of vehicles I was currently standing on... Worse yet, through the haze and smoke, I saw a dark shadow lurch up, a vague pony shape tromping through the flames.

The Courser thing was in rough shape, his coat was burning and ragged, his battlesaddle was a sparking wreck, one hindleg was nearly twisted off and gleamed in the flames, all the flesh stripped from the robotic appendage. Blood poured down his neck and scorched in the heat, dribbling down from the large chunks missing from the thing's face. The terrible wounds let me get a good look at the silvery skull and pitiless red eye shining through the flames at us.

"Fucking really!?! Die already!!" I shouted at the horror show still limping our way, bringing the Last Minute back up to see if a hole through his head would put the thing down.

I got a glimpse of that skeletal grin of perfect looking teeth through his torn muzzle, then another carriage exploded even closer, throwing me back and hiding him in the smoke and debris. Rolling down the pile of dead vehicles with a series of yelps and painful bongs, I splashed to a puddle of brackish, tingly water, looking up to spot the mare frantically scrabbling at a heavy steel door to the side of the choked tunnel.

Collapses blocked off the dual entrances to the passage, but the side door looked intact. The dim glow of a terminal blocked her from getting through, no matter how hard she bucked at it, making her hooves bleed with each 'clang' in the attempt. More explosions rocked the road under my hooves as I staggered up, we had to get out of here... now!

My pip-buck patch cable was already out and slammed home as I shoved her aside, glaring at her through the blinking lockout screen in my vision. She had been so desperate to get through, she froze the security... fantastic. Using a hurried bit of coding magic, I forced the stupid thing to load into safe mode, giving me one more opportunity to crack it.

Having the approaching string of very big, very deadly firecrackers shake rubble from the ceiling and send cracks in the tiled walls wasn't very helpful to concentration, though at least the pink filly cringed in the corner silently. I could feel the wave of heat filling the tunnel entrance as the next detonation shook me on my hooves, sweat pouring down my coat as the system unlocked with a click and she instantly grabbed at the door.

"Dammit! Wait for me! Don't just..." I shouted after her and threw myself through the door swinging open with a squall, stumbling my way down the dark passage beyond just before the world was engulfed in fire. We were lucky the door opened out, a stream of flame singed my tail before it slammed shut again, the earth and concrete around us rumbling in a ponymade earthquake and large chunks of the ceiling falling around us.

I ran for it, surrounding my hooves with lightning magic and blasting forward with hell on my heels, grabbing the fallen pink mare in my magic and dragging her with me. Flickering amber emergency lights blurred by in the dark, the narrow passage getting even harder to make out with the choking cloud of dust filling it. The rising inches of water at my hooves were slowing me down and even alicorn senses weren't good enough to make out every obstacle in the cluttered hall.

I barely made out a door hanging on its hinges ahead to the right, a way out into the larger tunnel beyond. Hoping for the best, I pinballed against the sturdy barrier and stumbled out to the rumbling space, tripping on a fire extinguisher half hidden in the rising water and rolling until smacking into the solid wall of a Trotson city bus. The mare was right behind me, my telekinetic grip imploded and she went careening on via inertia, slamming into me and knocking my breath out.

Bruised, woozy and ignoring the health alerts my pip-buck was trying to inform me about, I barely had time to snap out and catch the crazed bitch by her tail. She was already trying to run again!? Granted tunnel collapse was still a possibility, but the rumbles were dying down and she had taken a lot more damage than me.

"Let go! Let go! I have to get away! He's coming!!!" She screeched and bucked, forcing me to dodge and still earning a hoof to the face.

'Be Strong!' Gave a cowpony holler and I forced myself up with unsteady wings, wrestling her to the freezing water and wishing I had a rope to hogtie her. I settled for pinning her hooves over her head and straddling the bigger mare, locking my hindlegs around her barrel before she could buck me off and growling in her face, trying hard to keep my anger and annoyance from flaring too brightly. 'Be Dark...'

"Would you stop already!! He's dead! There's no way he survived all that! Now stop fucking running for one minute and talk to me! Let me help!!!"

She gave a sullen, terrified look back up with pinkprick eyes, shivering under me and whimpering. "He's coming..."

B2-80, or Byte as she preferred, was still a bundle of nerves some time later, flinching at every noise and keeping one golden eye on the emergency exit of the bus we sheltered in and the dark tunnel beyond. Convincing her to hide in the decrepit transport and hold still for a minute had been difficult enough, she looked like she wanted to bolt at every rumble and loud shake from that direction, more explosions above ground most likely...

I sat in the low steps leading up to the rest of the skeleton packed bus, leaning back in the declivity and keeping my hindlegs stretched out to the radioactive water filling the tunnel. It was just a slow and steady click-click-click from my pip-buck, probably riverwater from above, something was better than nothing though. Between soaking up the rads and taking another of my dwindling supply of Jade's healing potions, I was feeling marginally better at least.

As I watched, Byte was healing too, the numerous scratches and gouges in her coat sealing back together under the power of her healing talisman. Definitely a synth... A terrified one too, leaving me with the difficult task of trying to wrangle information from her one soft question at a time.

She was an Institute escapee, that much didn't really need her reluctant explanation. Though she did seem a little at sea at the prospect, like she hadn't really thought it through much beforehoof. While I was interested in just how she left the 'Think Tank' she mentioned, she couldn't answer any pointed questions about how to turn her exit into an entrance. Her programming prevented her from disclosing certain things, unfortunately those were the things I most wanted to know.

Having some knowledge about her kind and relating my experience with Angel and the Railroad helped a bit at least. She even somewhat brightened at the mention of the strange group, that was who she was trying to find when she got captured by the raiders. She was still wary, but my fame (or infamy) worked in my favor at least. She knew the Shrouded Stallion wasn't a friend of the Institute, so I slowly coaxed answers from her as we recovered.

Watching Val's, Glitter's and now Swan's new locator tags jittering around my own map marker, I sighed up to the scared synth. "Ok Byte... We're safe enough here, my friends are outside and looking for a way in I'm sure. Now that we have a second, I want to ask about Mo-"

No sooner was the first syllable out of my mouth, the frightened filly dove forward and crammed a hoof in my face, shushing me frantically. "NO! Don't say it! You can't name the forbidden one or they'll know exactly where we are!"

Gently pushing her back, I tried a different approach. "Ok... So, saying his name is bad... That's what caused all those synths to teleport in like that?"

"F-Failsafe... I was liberated by my master, but the failsafes are still active. That name is forbidden, anytime I hear it, a signal gets sent to the Institute. Since I'm a runaway, it goes to the retrieval teams, that's why they sent a Courser and so many. P-Please, don't say that name..." Byte shivered and cringed against the front benches, knocking a few dusty bones aside from their long commute.

"It's ok, I won't. Sorry... I didn't know. So, what's a Courser anyway? Why are you so afraid of that one? Er... not that a blame you really, he was one tough son of a bitch."

That got a shaky, harsh laugh that seemed to scare herself. "C-Coursers are... hunters, synth bounty hunters. They do other things, but mainly they track down those of us that try to escape. T-They're terrible Fast... Much stronger and faster than normal synths, advanced combat abilities and programming. D-Don't think that one is done either, it will find a way to follow... They don't feel pity or pain and they never stop until they accomplish their mission. I-It's coming... I know it's coming! We should go!!"

I wasn't nearly as worried about the Courser as I was about those rumbling tremors from the collapsed tunnel entrance. It was surprising this passage had survived 200 years of the river leaking in, but all those explosions -I was sure had to have incinerated our pursuer- also weakened even this well excavated structure too much for comfort.

Splashing back out to the sunken roadway with a groan, I flexed my mending wing and nodded back to her. Bloody, bruised and terribly tired, but I was good enough to move and the tingle of radioactive water at my hooves was slowly helping.

"Alright, we can walk and talk. No way to go but forward I'm guessing, so let's get moving. Tell me about Doctor.... the forbidden one, why is just his name enough to call in the heavy hitters?"

Byte scrambled out of the bus as soon as I moved, slogging through the rising water in a rush and answering between sharp breaths. "It's not normally, the masters just want to know any time it's said. All that showed up because it let them find me. Almost nopony says the forbidden one's name, it's... well, forbidden. Talking about him is like rebelling against them, spreading dissent, questioning their authority."

"What do you know about him Byte? Why's he such a big deal anyway, just talking about him is enough to get you in that much trouble?"

She gave an unsure shrug back, her knowledge of the forbidden Doc Mobius seemed secondhoof and almost superstitious, like a little filly talking about Nightmare Moon, some storybook villain that still made her shudder. "The masters want to ignore him and pretend he doesn't exist, but they're afraid of him... He's one of the makers too, his words carry as much weight as theirs for my kind, and he said things they don't like."

"What kinds of things Byte? What did he say that made them freak out and make just his name some kind of curse?"

She gave me a penetrating stare, sizing me up and reluctantly answering after a long minute. "It's only whispered about among us... Just talking about it is enough to be reformatted. But... I've heard the forbidden one fought with the other masters over many things, said they'd lost their minds when the world burned... Their arguments kept getting worse, then something happened and he snapped. He renounced them all, made himself an enemy to the Institute and escaped to his lab in the forbidden zone."

"Let me guess, about 80 years ago or so?"

Her shaky nod was all I needed, giving me a little hope. Whatever evils Grandpa had done, he clashed with the others even before they took my Stable. Once that deed was done though, when he apparently thought I had been killed... That's when things got really bad. He did care... didn't he?

"Thanks Byte, umm for telling me what you can. The... 'forbidden one' is kinda important to me. Though the rest of the Institute is too, if they want you back so bad, that's all the more reason for me to help you. We'll get out of here and get you to the Railroad, I've run into them a few times and can get you in the neighborhood anyway."

"O-Oh, I have a contact location to go to and passphrase, I just have to get there and they can help me, deactivate the failsafes and hide me... My master set it all up before he liberated me, t-that's why I can't let them catch me, it would put Dr. Vigil in danger too." My companion sounded better the more distance we put behind us, slogging down the dark, flooded tunnel under the dim amber emergency lights still flickering on the walls.

She sounded less shaky talking about her 'master' too, full of a species of pride and gratitude I had to ask about. "Dr. Vigil? He let you go huh? That courser guy sounded awful interested in him, that why they went all out trying to catch you? Can you tell me about him?"

Again came that hard stare of guarded secrets, but she finally sighed and nodded. "Dr. Vigil was my master in the Think Tank, I was his assistant... He's nice, better than most masters there, he treated me well, talked to me like a real pony, gave me a name, cared about me... When he started having doubts, he discussed them with me. He said he had to escape and let me choose if I wanted to be free before he ran away."

"So he's a real pony? What kind of doubts? Why'd he leave the Institute?"

"Of course he's real, there are many real ponies in the Think Tank, it's not all just synths and the directors. He started having doubts because... w-well, because of you." Byte's earnest answer took me by surprise, so there were real ponies working with the Institute... Not only that, but at least one rebelled?

"Because of me? Why?"

"He worked with Dr. Dala and Biosciences, when the I.M.P. 2.0 worked on you, they were all very excited, for awhile... But the next round of test subjects all failed and Dr. Vigil got very upset, they couldn't make it work again... Dr. Dala stopped participating, but Dr. Vega's division demanded more of the flawed potion. Not to try to improve and succeed again, but to keep making the twisted failures..."

"Master Vigil was able to excuse failures on the road to a breakthrough like you, but intentionally making those poor creatures? He started to question why Vega would do such a thing, what Public Relations was doing on the surface... what his work was being used for... everything. When he found out, he was sick with anger, said he couldn't be a part of such madness anymore." Byte spoke quietly, relating what had been her and her master's lives seemed to calm her a bit more, leaving me with more questions that she could only partially answer.

Setting off an alarm at the mention of Doc Mobius was just one 'failsafe' built into the synthetic mare. She was able to provide more information than I had gotten about the workings of the Institute than pretty much anypony else, but just the surface. Trying to dig deeper resulted in a wall she couldn't go past, unable to tell me anything dangerous to the Institute like how to find them, how she got out, where they were in the Commonwealth, anything beyond her personal experiences.

She led a fairly sheltered life too, mostly speaking of her cozy existence in this Think Tank place with her master. I was interested to learn most of the normal ponies working for the Institute seemed unaware or ill informed about the world above, but that seemed a poor excuse for contributing to the group and the misery they spread. She knew a little about Biosciences because that's where she worked, but almost nothing about any of the other divisions beyond idle gossip she picked up from this Dr. Vigil or her fellow synths living in the Think Tank.

"Your master, Dr. Vigil? He escaped then, right? He could tell me more? Do you know where he went Byte? Why didn't he take you with him?"

What had been caution and reluctance turned to stone faced refusal at the subject of her master, Byte stamped a hoof down in the murky water with a splash and shook her head, giving a whinny of negation. "I won't betray master Vigil. He ran away and hid, but he wanted me to be free, said it was too dangerous to stay with him, e-even though I wanted to... He's safe, if I tell you, they might find out... o-or you might hurt him... You are feared in the Institute Shrouded Stallion, telling you might be as bad as telling that Courser."

"No it wouldn't! I don't want to hurt him..."

'Be Dark...' disagreed and made me pause in the lie. If this Vigil was an Institute scientist, one that worked with Dala on her twisted version of the I.M.P. they used on me and who knows how many other innocent ponies? I supposed I couldn't really guarantee I wouldn't hurt him... change of heart or not.

By her skeptical look, it seemed like she saw through me too, forcing me to try again. "I don't want to want to hurt him. I want to hurt the rest of the Institute though, a lot more than one pony who sounds like he realized what they were doing was wrong. If he can tell me things you can't, help me get to them and find my family. I promise I won't hurt your master Byte, I swear to the goddesses. I'll even try to help him if I can."

The synth's long, wary stare made me a little hopeful, her lip quivered in thought and opened slowly, only to give a sharp 'Eeep!' as she was suddenly yanked down into the chest high water. Figuring out what the hell was going on through the thrashing and water splashing everywhere was aided by the low groans and burbles nearby, E.F.S. was lighting up with red all around us...

Spotting them in the gloom was hard even for alicorn nightvision, activating S.A.T.S. let me pick out their glowing outlines and gulp with disgust though. Zombies... bloated, waterlogged corpses were lurching up from the water, crawling from the wrecked carriages and murky, radioactive water. Who knows how many were down here, in the dark... undisturbed since the last time somepony was fool enough to go wandering down this stygian pit.

It may have taken them awhile to wake up, but our idly splashing down the long tunnel and chatting had done the trick. Byte looked like she had nearly stepped right on the one wrestling with her in the water at my hooves, snarling out from a pile of rubble and dragging her down when her leg came too close.

Deliverer came out and started queuing up shots, the silent and speedy weapon the best bet for dealing with the threat and hopefully not waking up even more undead hiding down the tunnel. Time started again and the magical pistol blazed away, riddling the misshapen monster snapping at Byte with holes to let her struggle free of the corpse, then snapping up and spinning towards the rest closing in.

She gasped for breath and clambered up to the pile of rubble, getting out of the water as quickly as she could to avoid any other hidden attackers. I wasn't sure if synths could drown, but she certainly looked scared of just that as the extended 10mm clip ran dry. Following her lead, I gave a hard flap and landed on a rusting hulk sticking up out of the water just ahead, getting some elevation on the pancaked roof of a yellow cab and trying to draw the snarling zombie's attention.

Blue Moon clicked out at my side and sent bright beams down as I reloaded, the soft 'zzzorch!' not echoing down the tunnel at least. The blinding light in what had been their dark tomb also drew their focus, illuminating the swollen faces and milky eyes charging at me, swarming over each other to climb up and feed. They were worse than most zombie ponies, bloated and disgusting corpses whose flesh fell away and fouled the water from their own hooves clambering over each other.

"Byte! Run! Get higher!" I panted between shots, down to bucking at the horde of zombies leaping up to my perch. A desperate wing assisted leap sent me over to a Trotson Flugelhorn delivery cart nearby, the tipped over wreck a slightly higher mountain to play king of.

A few of the dead were pegasi, a pair of which soared after me as soon as I was in the air, faster and more agile than I was even with withered, featherless wings. My awkward landing ended up in a rolling crash, falling to the frothy water teeming with more undead that quickly dove after me, forming a sickening dogpile of squishy, rotting flesh.

I choked and sputtered on the foul water, the radiation was helpful, but not nearly enough to keep up with the snapping jaws clamping on every bit of pony flesh they could find. Best Served came out and glimmered in the dark, weaving around me as I rolled and fought to escape. Getting my hooves under me and wincing at the bites to my spread wings, I shoved with every bit of earth pony strength I could muster, 'Be Strong!'. I shot straight up to the crumbling, tiled ceiling, splattering one zombie clinging to my back against the surface, its guts exploding from its bloated abdomen and coating me in gore.

Bucking and shaking the others falling away or still clinging to my legs by their teeth, I glanced over to Byte, making sure she had clambered up on top of a pile of rubble stretching up to the matching hole in the ceiling. The synth mare hadn't taken a weapon in her desperate escape, but was fairly good at hoof to hoof, as my sore jaw attested to... The important thing was she was out of the water though...

KRAKA-THOOOM!!!

The bolt of lightning from my horn filled the dark tunnel with blinding light, the snarling herd of zombies standing out in stark relief as the electricity arced across the water and scorched them, while the recoil sent me bashing into the ceiling again. A large swath of red marks in my vision disappeared one by one as they cooked and jittered in the water below, letting me kick the one dragging me down by a bleeding hindleg off and try to mop up the rest while fluttering near the ceiling.

"I-I think it's ok Byte! Just stay out of the way and we'll be alright! Only a few more..."

BLAM!

A resounding crash echoed down the tunnel, the piercing round propelled by the blast tore through my magical armor, ripping a line of fire down my ribs and wedging in my guts. I tumbled from the air, sucking in a burning breath before splashing to the water with Byte's wail filling my ears. What the fuck!?

I gasped up and thrashed feebly in the water, spotting Byte taking a flying leap from her pile of rubble, only to get struck by a bolt of magic from down the passage. A pair of faintly glowing hoofcuffs appeared on her hindlegs, binding her frantic scramble and sending her flopping to the water nearby.

"Unit B2-80, you will be retrieved..." A merciless voice drifted from the dark over her screams, the Courser resolved out of the shadows from a distorted blur behind us. It survived?! It fucking followed us!?!

The remaining zombies flung themselves down the tunnel at the new target, three of the lurching things blown away by three rapid headshots from the synth's booming 12mm pistol. The undead gave me time at least, I sucked down my last green healing potion and rolled for cover behind a rusting moving wagon, wheezing and shaking as my wound slowly healed.

"Subject 111-3-42, you will be retrieved and brought to Biosciences for study. Surrender yourself and avoid unnecessary suffering." The courser kept right on strolling forward as I peeked around my shelter, catching Byte's terrified golden eyes begging for help where she struggled and tried to drag herself away.

She was right, the damn Courser found a way... Even after all the damage I had seen the bastard take, he was in perfect shape again. Only his missing battlesaddle attested to the destruction he had barreled through when I last saw him. His dark coat and sunglasses were intact, along with his pale coat and the dark mane I had seen scorched from his skull. His pistol floated by his head in a field of silvery magic, tracking wherever his blank stare fell.

Taking a better look, I spotted a dark gleam from under his foreleg sleeve, the son of a bitch even had a pip-buck!? No... not quite, one of the Institute's psuedo pip-buck's like Kellogg wore, a sleeker, black version with more crystals and doo-dads blinking near the blue tinted screen.

I could hear more growls and groans echoing back up the tunnel in response to his loud shot stirring them up, distant and less of a threat than the immediate one placidly walking forward, or the continuing thumps and rumbles from the collapsed entrance we had come in.

Panting behind my hiding place as I drew the Terrible Shotgun and Vengeance, I gnawed on the handle of Best Served with my fangs anxiously as I scraped the bottom of the barrel for ideas. No wonder Byte was so scared of this Courser thing... I was pretty unsure of my chances against it at this point, left with two options I didn't really want to take.

Better I went with the lesser of two evils, my pip-buck's inventory sorter dug up the vial of Dash I kept on hoof for emergencies. I wished I had another healing potion or a convenient source of intense radiation, the prewar combat drug would have to suffice. Better that than the tempting whisper of 'Be Dark...' and the clink of loosening chains around that dark stasis pod in my head that kept it locked up. The drug was dangerous enough, but it was a known. Letting that dark Shroud off the chain might work too, but there was no telling what might happen if I did.

It was already straining against its bonds anyway, the aura of lightning that surrounded me flickered darkly at the pulse of anger it kept stoking. The Institute... a representative of the Institute was here to direct all that hate at, a fancy synth made to hunt its own kind and keep them enslaved, brought here by the mere mention of my Grandfather...

I wasn't above using that cajoling grumble in my head, letting it set my heart to pounding and my eyes burning as I inhaled the Dash and dove out. Even with the euphoria of the drug taking hold and the world slowed down to a crawl, the evil fuck was quick. I left a lightning arcing plume of dirty water in my wake and at least three droning shots hammered through the spray right on my heels.

Streaking around him in sharp, rapid turns to try to confuse him only worked so well. My weapons barked and sent him prancing back, avoiding the majority of a hail of gunfire that would have ended a dozen plain old Gen 1 synths. A trio of shotgun slugs and .45s found their target at least, making him flinch at the ragged wound blown through his gleaming metallic ribs.

It barely slowed him down though, he was figuring me out already too, the next rapid set of 12mm rounds all found me as I blasted forward through another turn, predicting the path I'd take and hammering my chest and flank. If he zeroed in his targeting any more, that would be my head next...

A change of tactics then, my next turn sent me barreling right at him, infuriated to find that even in the slow motion of Dash's wonderful high, the bastard appeared to be moving normally. What's more, his huge pistol was surrounded in a layer of overglow swirling around the barrel, matching the brightly glimmering crystal on his fake pip-buck. Shit! He had the S.A.T.S. overcharge system too!?

I activated S.A.T.S. in a panic and used the same system I was afraid he was, I had a full charge lighting up my own matching crystal module on my hoof. If he wanted to kill me, there was a good chance the swirling field of runes of magical power surrounding his pistol would do it, the best I could hope for was that he wanted me alive and that I could match him.

The last round from Kellogg's silver revolver was imbued with the stored energy from the S.A.T.O.S. addition, a field of my own bright blue magic swirling around the weapon in an identical display as the courser's. When I hit accept, the low thrum of power that had built to a climax in both weapons erupted, the resounding crashes of the dueling pistols filled the tunnel, bouncing crazily off the tiled walls.

I nearly fell right to the murky water as a wave of pain threatened to swallow me up, my dim hope he wanted to capture me alive being proven right was small consolation to nearly having a hindleg blown off entirely. Adrenaline and Dash drove me on, barely... my wings took up the slack for my crippled leg and I kept plowing forward towards him. My own enhanced .45 had torn a large chunk from his silvery skull, right through the stupid sunglasses and out the back, revealing sparking circuitry and what passed for his artificial brain.

Alright... Coursers didn't bother going for perfect mimicry of real ponies like the Gen 3s did. The dribbling chunks from his noggin were partially biological, but his metal skull already mending before my eyes wouldn't pass for bone, the blinking lights and gleaming crystals among all that grey matter didn't belong in a pony either.

What would have been a fatal shot even for an advanced synth didn't put this throwback down, Byte was right, it was built to be an unstoppable killing machine, some kind of enhanced Gen 2 / Gen 3 hybrid. Biological covering over much more mechanical underpinnings, reinforced bones and redundant systems to keep it going while it rebuilt its own brain...

I snarled around the handle of Best Served and slashed out for his neck, if I could cut his fucking head off, let's see him keep going then... My brief moment of hope was dashed when he slithered out of the way, holding a hoof up to try to stop the strike while pulling his half ruined head aside. His metal bones might parry a normal blade, but the starmetal knife sliced neatly through his defensive foreleg, taking away his pip-buck thing at least, but not decapitating him as I hoped.

His other foreleg shot up under my outstretched muzzle, uppercutting me and knocking the knife from my grip. The bastard hit as hard as Zed! Advanced combat programming... hoof to hoof included along with his skill using magical energy weapons and ballistic firearms.

A tremendous rumble from down the tunnel and cloud of dust distracted me, while the Courser had no such problem, following up his uppercut with a graceful spin and powerful buck to the gut that sent me to the ceiling. Before I could peel myself from the curved tunnel roof, his pistol was already booming, two rounds to the joints of each splayed out wing, crippling both according to the blinking alerts from my pip-buck screeching at me.

I distantly heard Byte's pained cry through the roar filling my ears when I fell to the water again, it felt a lot colder than before... or was that just me? Shock... going into shock... shit... My one working hindleg shoved uselessly, barely enough to roll me to my side and let Blue Moon extend, lancing out at him repeatedly as I tried to get my working legs under me.

The bright beams never came near hitting him, but did send him dancing back, still far too agile for only having three legs to work with. His pistol started swinging my way again and I flailed and crawled to get away, already steeling myself for his next painfully accurate shots. They never came though... a rising sound was filling the tunnel, distracting us both looking for the source of that eerie cry growing louder over his shoulder.

My eyes didn't want to focus when I shakily managed to crane my neck up, trying to make sense of the approaching purple ball of light. It was like a freight train with a violet headlamp was screaming down the tunnel, loud crashes and explosions trailing in its wake as it plowed through every obstacle and knocked the ancient wrecks and rubble aside.

A ring of bright purple dots surrounded the approaching larger one, gleaming brightly as they swelled and eldritch arrows of violet magic came shooting ahead, sending the Courser rolling aside frantically. The crackling arrows pierced the asphalt and quivered in the side of an armored police wagon the Courser dove for, following his progress in a line of near misses while that big purple ball streaked closer. Swan?

The Courser reloaded his pistol in a hurry and floated out a pair of gleaming metal apples, fancy grenades... I couldn't do much against the bastard, but he had disregarded me as much of a threat and that kind of pissed me off. I was a hell of a lot closer than Swan and we weren't done yet...

Deliverer bobbed up in my wobbly magic and I activated S.A.T.S., not bothering to waste the charge pinging the heavily armored and reinforced synth with 10mm rounds. Those grenades of his though... they'd work just fine on those, at this range the pip-buck even gave me 60% odds trusting the targeting spell instead of my own fading vision.

The second shot from the silent pistol hit the mark, the silvery apple floating right by his head detonated in a blinding green flash of plasma. The water under his hooves boiled and half of the rusting hulk he hid behind melted in the blast, the shockwave throwing me back to smack against a slab of concrete from the ceiling.

I groaned weakly and slid down the angled surface, leaving a wide streak of blood behind on the way down to the roiling water. Blinking dizzily through the smoke and haze, I goggled at the silhouette of the Courser still standing. Sweet Celestia! What the fuck did it take to put one of these things down permanently!?!

The flesh had been vaporized from his gleaming metallic bones on one side completely, letting me get a short, blurry glimpse of just what made him tick I couldn't help noting even through the pain. Under all that scorched muscle and blood was something close to the combat robot frame under AssaultJack's armor plating, a skeleton of something much stronger than steel, incredibly advanced components of circuitry and gems blinking rapidly as it started regenerating already.

Not fast enough though... The blazing purple ball smashed through the last wrecks separating us with a roaring warcry, one big, angry warrior princess at the heart of the violet storm of magic lashing out to the threat. Swan was devastating... her long pink mane rippling around her like a torch, as blasts from her horn drove the wounded synth back. It was still somehow able to competently dodge, but there was no getting away from Swan's assault.

The courser made a misstep coming down on a pile of zombie corpses while missing a foreleg, more than enough time for Swan to pounce. The purple alicorn teleported right on top of him before he could recover, pinning him under her ...increased bulk? Swan had put on a great deal of weight... slamming him to the sunken roadway with all of it and driving one big hoof into his melted face, over, and over, and over...

WHAM! "You hurt Fast!" WHAM! "You're bad!" WHAM! "You're gonna pay!" WHAM! "Stupid robot thing!" WHAM!

Swan screeched in fury, each heavy hoofstrike driving what remained of the Courser's head into the asphalt, sending a plume of water up to the ceiling shaking ominously at each blow. Her foreleg came back coated in glowing green goop when it melted under her, leaving her frustrated and snorting angrily. Her dragonish, blue-violet eyes searching for something else to hurt and widening in fear when they fell on me flopping uselessly, the dark pupils going wide and round again as she gasped.

"H-Hi Swan... g-good to...see... you..." I croaked up to her with a crooked grin, the darkness at the edges of everything swallowing me up into the black.

Oh that felt good.... nice and warm, tingly even... The annoying chatter made me moan and furrow my brow, fumbling to shut off the stupid alarm clock or whatever it was that was getting through the depths of sleep. I mumbled grumpily and rolled over, trying to escape the noise and curl up in the silky blanket over me, consoling myself over the interruption at the soft kisses and nuzzles I burrowed into.

Cracking one eye open slowly, I found myself staring into a big, sparkling stare framed by a lot of purple, not Jade's blue I was expecting. Blinking back in confusion as a rather large muzzle kept right on nuzzling and nudging at me, I realized the blanket I was pulling tighter to myself was pink... and attached to the big head over mine...

"S-Swan?"

The big filly gave a happy whinny, her oversized head shooting up and taking her flowing mane wrapped around me with her, I was lifted a foot off the ground along with her tangled tresses before spilling to the ...really hard bed..., wincing at the wave of aches the spill brought as Swan's clear voice rang out above me.

"He's awake! It's ok niece! I told you the radiation would make him all better, see!?" Swan chirped happily, my upside down view of her beaming face was nothing but blue sky and a lot of Swan, turned to look away at something I couldn't see from the... road?

Yes... road, I was laying on the road, angled road by the way my body wanted to roll down the slope. That annoying chatter was coming from my foreleg... the pip-buck detecting the strong radiation I could feel tingling through my bruised and battered body, soothing it as the cute little rainbow gauge climbed steadily past orange.

"Daddy!?! Daddy are you ok!? Say something!!" Glitter's frightened yelp from somewhere nearby sent me scrambling up, sitting up on my haunches and nearly falling back over.

"S-Something!..."

Rubbing my aching head with a wince, I called out loudly in return, trying to reassure her wherever she was, while I tried to get my bearings. I only got another glimpse when I opened my eyes, the view of the burning slope leading down into the tunnel quickly blocked by a lot of Swan returning to her kissing with a squee of relief.

"We were worried! You scared me Fast! Why did you let that dumb robot hurt you so much!? I'm glad you made all this nice radiation though, it fixed you right up! Plus I'm not so tiny anymore! I feel lots better now! How about you? Can you get up? Niece Glitter is very worried..."

"Boss! Start talkin' dammit! Don't make me come down there ta smack ya, worth it even if I end up glowin' in the dark!" Val's worried squawk from the same direction as Glitter helped me shake off my remaining wooziness, patting Swan's full cheek nuzzling against mine to get her to back off and look around.

She did pull back at the gentle encouragement, sitting up straight in front of me and peering down from... quite a bit higher than before... Sitting right in front of her, I had to crane my head back to look up into her twinkling gaze, she was a few feet taller?

Looking around slowly, that mystery was short lived at least, along with how ....not dead... I felt. We were sitting in the sunken roadway leading into the tunnel, the burning wrecks of a dozen vehicles that had blown up and collapsed the entrance behind us were pouring out rads. Looking towards the rubble and ruin that had choked the passage, I spotted a perfectly round hole bored into the blocked passage, leading into the dark past Swan's flicking tail.

All the radiation from the string of exploding prewar vehicles... Swan sat here and soaked it all up, bashing her way through the blockage, that was what all the continuing shakes were... Not only did she get her way, she powered a path through just in time to save my ass, and had somewhere to take me to recover. The residual rads still baking off the blackened, sloped roadway were keeping Val and Glitter back, but what was poison to them saved my life.

"Nnngh... I'm alright Val! Stay up there... a-are you two alright?!"

Shaking my head to get everything to stop trying to spin, I followed her annoyed grumble up to the chest high walls of crumbling concrete up on the flat city streets above. "Helluva lot better than you dammit! The hell was you thinkin' stupid?! Got yer ass kicked up one side and down the other by some tin can in a fancy coat!? All cause of this one? What'cha wanna do with her anyway?"

Val hoisted the struggling Byte by her collar and shook her gruffly, the poor synth didn't look nearly as terrified with the Courser finally dead, but clearly wanted to get away again. Normally Glitter would have at least kept the griffon from being too rough with her, but by her bloodshot stare and fidgeting with her hooves hooked over the low barrier above, I got the idea she wasn't too happy with the synth either.

Swan's narrowed eyed glare that way made that three of my friends displeased with her actually... "She tried to run Fast... I didn't kill her though! You were chasing her for something right?"

The big mare fluttered her eyelashes and turned down to me expectantly, seeking praise for her restraint and giving a happy whinny when she got it. "G-Great job not... killing her then Swan, and for saving us both from that thing, thank you."

Standing as she pranced in place over me brought a lot of pain still, my mending hindleg tried to give out and Swan lifted a wing out for me to lean against, letting me stretch and try to get the kinks out. I didn't have a huge hole showing the bone through my leg anymore at least, though there was still a noticeable divot being regenerated by the rads. My wings were stiff and the rebuilding joints ground as they flexed, but they basically obeyed trying to give a flap and take me up to Glitter, well enough to rise a couple feet off the ground before flopping back to the road anyway.

Nickering playfully to herself, Swan's bright purple magic surrounded me groaning on the pavement and she gave a smooth beat of her own much more graceful wings, clearing the barrier and setting me back down to be tackled by Glitter instantly. Her little hooves drummed against my chest and made me wince at all the bruises and damage hidden under my coat, but I figured I had it coming and she was also nuzzling anxiously during my punishment.

"Y-You got all hurt and bloody daddy! You looked awful an' mommy wasn't here to fix you!! I-I'm tellin' when we get back! M-Mom will be mad at you for being so dumb, l-letting that mean synth pony hurt you so much, a-all cause of her!" Glitter sniffled and struggled in my hooves, pointing a shaking foreleg back at Byte dangling in Val's grip.

I had to give it to the Institute's Courser, it was as dangerous as Byte fearfully advised, taking me apart piece by piece in a short exchange that could have gone a lot differently. Looking up to her pouting and running in place held over the ground in Val's claw, I raised an eyebrow at the glaring griffon while trying to soothe my daughter.

"I know sweetie, I'm sorry... Let her go Val, none of this was her fault. Er... sorry Byte, they're just worried. Are you ok? Can we help you get away from here, off to wherever you were trying to get to?"

Val gave a flat stare and simply let her go, falling to the litter strewn sidewalk on her rump and scrambling back up immediately. To her credit, the scared synth didn't go screaming down the ruined streets though, giving an unsure look at me being pummeled by the little filly still glaring daggers at her, then up to the matching stares of Val lashing her tail angrily and Swan looming over her.

"N-No.. thank you, I'm supposed to go alone... i-if they're still waiting at the rendezvous point anyway. I'll be ok, h-have to learn to take care of myself out here sometime. I'm sorry you got dragged into my problems and so hurt... Y-Your father was very brave though little one, not many ponies have ever taken on a Courser and lived, but he protected me from him." Byte answered quietly, looking out to the ruins with trepidation before turning back and trying to help dig me out of trouble.

Glitter puffed up with pride and a little of her anger cooled with her reply. "O-Of course he did! My daddy's a big hero that always beats the bad guys! Y-You're just lucky he was there to help, h-he probably only got hurt tryin' ta keep you safe!" Glitter stuck her nose up in a pout, dragging one of my aching wings up to hide her as she burrowed against my neck, pushing her dirty silver mane in my face and whispering. "H-Here daddy... Gale was really scared too, y-you should say you're sorry!"

Safely hidden from the stranger, the little breezie's head popped out from Glitter's mane and she held a golden dusted hoof up, instantly slurped up as she chittered quietly. "Y-Yu is not dead Fast Shroud? Vas scared... c-could no heal dat much hurty, bad fires make yu better doh? Ve go home tu Breezie Nation? Adventure in beeg pony world exciting und give tings tu tink aboot, but ready to go home..."

Oh nectar was a blessed relief... the dull aches and pains still wracking my regenerating body retreated from Gale's wonderful golden powder and I nodded slowly, suckling on her dusted foreleg and releasing it with a grateful lick to her small face that made her sputter. "Okie dokie Gale, we go home, you got it. Thanks, sorry to scare you, but I'm glad you came along, you helped a lot!"

Wiping the slobber from her face, Gale tittered up at the relaxed grin spreading on my muzzle and ducked back into hiding, relieved at the thought of returning to the MoP hub. Thanks to her amazing natural painkiller, I felt a great deal better and my wings moved a little smoother, obediently tucking back to my sides and letting Glitter return her glare to the anxious looking synth.

Not wanting her to misplace blame, I tilted her chin back to me with a gentle hoof. "It was my fault sweetie, not hers. I heard Mo... er.... Grandpa's name and lost it. I brought that tough pony here, and he wasn't a pushover... if it weren't for Aunt Swan, we both would have been in a lot of trouble."

Byte flinched under her remaining ire, soothed somewhat by Swan's slow nod of agreement about her opponent in the tunnels. "It was very strong for a robot pony niece, it took a lot to smash it before it melted and got all over my pretty clothes... This is all that's left now though!"

Waving a hoof to the dimly glowing green stains spattered on her pink skirt, Swan pulled out a pale severed hoof from her small bag and dropped it to the road with a clatter. The gleaming black Institute pip-buck still attached and glowing... Looking up gratefully to her wide smile, I flung myself at the big mare, squeezing Glitter with me in a hug to her broad chest that made her gasp in delighted surprise.

"Swan! Thank you! Great job grabbing that!"

She warmed right up to the embrace, crushing the pair of us with her long forelegs and getting Glitter a little closer to normal under giggle inducing nuzzles from a large muzzle purring happily. "You like stupid pony junk right? It looked fancy and glowy, so I grabbed it and her before she ran away...

Struggling free from a ton of alicorn basking in praise, I fell back to the street and grabbed the bloody leg with distaste. Trying to ignore the all too real biological part attached to it, I was ecstatic to find it hadn't fried like Kellogg's pip-buck had on his death. It had been severed while the Courser was still alive... considering the bastard's regenerative abilities, it was probably just waiting to be reattached to the stump.

A few clicks through the similar interface seemed to support the idea, a timer was steadily counting down on the health status screen. Since it was still attached to only slowly dying flesh, it seemed like there was a window before it decided its owner wasn't coming back and wiped itself.

The Institute did too good of a job copying Stable-Tec though, the architecture was essentially the same, what differed was easy enough to figure out. A rushed bit of hacking let me put it into a safe shutdown, all the interesting components and who knew what kinds of data were still intact! Swan might not understand why the complicated bit of 'junk' was making me so happy, but she certainly liked the overjoyed kiss I planted on her leaning over my shoulder to view her trophy.

"Goddesses you're awesome Swan! This is amazing! I need time with it, but this belonged to the fancy Courser asshole, who knows what might be on it! Maybe even a way to find the Institute!!" I kept smacking Swan with overjoyed kisses, making the big mare turn red at my insistent affection as my mane started itching.

The bodily warning was distant and unimportant compared to having a real clue about the shadowy group, not to mention surviving... being alive and feeling my daughter's warm little muzzle against my neck, the sun on my spread wings, drinking in the sweaty, silken purple fur pressing back against me , nipping at her long neck as she squeezed back...

A strong claw grabbing me by my scruff and yanking me away from the tender contact made me yelp, Val flapped a few feet away from the pouting alicorn and squinted at the radiation gauge on my pip-buck with a snort, rolling her eyes as she dumped me to the ground.

"Yer gettin' all frisky boss... Fun an' games later, don't gimme that look neither big stuff! Still ain't taken my pay, I gots dibs anytime I want, an' I say no playin' around. Blue ain't around, somebody's gotta keep his head on straight till he bleeds this off. Them D.C. guards are loose an' on their way back home boss, probably ought'a get movin'..." Val being the voice of reason wasn't a role she was used to or comfortable with, teasingly flicking her tail at my goofy leer even while admonishing Swan against the same thing.

Glitter's curious stare at me snapping after the bit of red fluff tickling my face helped me snap out of it, absorbing all those rads saved me, but the needle was jittering madly at the red end of the dial... Swan got bigger, I just turned into a pervert... She took one look between the stupid look on my face and flared wings, then to Swan leaning after me with those pink bands flashing in her eyes, giving a cute little huff and joining Val in keeping us separated.

"You're bein' silly again dad... No goofin' off an' havin' fun with Aunt Swan! You're still in trouble! We're goin' back to mommy an' she can tell you how dumb you were first!" A tiny foal pushing against an oversized alicorn was totally impractical, but Swan reluctantly gave ground to the filly snorting over her shoulder at her stupid and near death prone father.

I shook my head and scratched my mane sheepishly, feeling my face heat up at being so easily figured out by my wise beyond her years filly. "Heh... right... sorry sweetie, mom will give me an earful alright. Let's get back and you can tell her all about it, I'll accept my punishment, so long as you cheer up and let her handle all the telling me what a dumbass I am huh?"

Tickling the squirming filly blew away the remaining fear and worry trying to settle on her shoulders, I hated putting her in situations like this and didn't want her weighed down by my problems and concerns too. She was still a filly, my filly... and her giggles and bright smile were more important than anything.

The playful back and forth looked to relax the synth watching it all with a bemused expression at least, Byte started chuckling into her hoof softly, finally giving a shaky sigh and pointing to the courser's pip-buck. "University Point Fast..."

"Pardon?" I blinked up from clutching the upside down filly against my chest, idly continuing to tickle her tummy over her breathless squeals.

"My master... Dr. Vigil. You should go to University Point Fast... take that thing with you, Master Vigil may be able to help you with it, a-and you might be able to help him. I believe you will now, y-you promised, right?" The synth mare looked pained and to be taking a big leap of faith, but volunteered her most precious secret with a gulp.

Map Updated...

Mission Added: Dangerous Minds

Objective----
---Travel to University Point
---Locate Dr. Vigil

I let Glitter go to prance off as the text blinked in my eyes, holding a mostly steady foreleg out to Byte and getting the reticent hoofbump returned. "I promised. If I can help him, I will. Whether he can help me find the Institute or not. Er... now that you're free and all though Byte, he'd probably like it if you stopped calling him your master. Try 'your friend' instead, huh? Like I hope we are, friends?"

"F-Friends... Yes, I would like that! I will, t-thank you Fast. I hope to see you again someday! For now we should all leave this place, beyond just the Diamond City ponies coming here, there's the Institute to worry about. A Courser going down will make them wary and they should pull back, but they'll investigate eventually. I really have to leave now. Goodbye!" Giving an unsure but dawning smile of real happiness, the odd pink mare gave a determined nod and ran off, out into the ruins of Trotson that quickly swallowed her up.

Floating Glitter to my back, I gave a few ungainly flaps and hovered up, tucking the brim of my hat down and nodding back to the west. "She's right, we've got a few reasons to get out of here now. Let's get back to the others."

Val blew past me easily, circling impatiently and giving a huff to Swan staring back at the radioactive hellscape in the street below with longing clear in her sparkling eyes. "C'mon big stuff! You heard the boss, let's gooooo!"

"But... It's nice and glowy down there... Couldn't we stay a little longer and ...rest? Fast still needs to heal!" Swan ventured an excuse to stay and keep soaking up radiation, that unsatisfied look to her already expanded self making me wonder again about her insistence over staying in a super alicorn state.

Val knew just what ammo to use on her though, fluttering back down with a smirk and tossing her head. "If'n ya wanna play with the boss, ya gotta go see Blue first right? If I was you, I'd be in a hurry ta do it now while he's all overcharged too ya know. Boss don't get no bigger like you, but he does... well..."

A sly look up to me gulping with the foal on my back was followed by Val leaning forward into Swan's perked up ears, holding a claw up to whisper rapidly, making the big lavender filly's get wide and round. I could feel myself turning red down to my hooves at the huge grin slowly spreading on her face, glaring at Val as she was nearly knocked from the air by the big alicorn rocketing up and prancing in midair.

"Let's go! Hurry! Let's go back to sister Jade now!" Swan fluttered overhead impatiently, ignoring Val's uproarious laughter.

"I hate you Val..."

Giving me a shove up to the air, Val kept right on snickering as we flew off, climbing above the ruins of the city and towards the carpet of fall colors on the horizon. "What!? Got her big butt movin' didn't it?! Just had ta give her proper motivation like, move it boss! Can't keep a filly waitin'!"

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

Critical Banker (Rank 2)---------
---Cannibalizing another Institute pip-buck has given you additional storage capacity on your S.A.T.S. Overcharge Module! As a patient battlefield technician, you can now hold two critical shots in reserve!