It was hard to believe that we were on this kind of mission. I looked up at the ruined skyline of Manehattan, its was weird to think of the city as being so, quiet to be honest. It was almost as if the city was waiting for either the Enclave or the NCR to make their next move.

We had friends and allies but it was always a matter of what we could do. The NCR was crippled because of what the Enclave could bring to bear and there was a real risk of them surrendering. And if that happened, the Enclave would win and bring Equestria under its control, whatever Winter Breeze had planned would come to pass.

But what was that? Why was she really interested in taking over Equestria? She never seemed that much like a mad dictator outside of her threats to take down the NCR and Dashites, even when we talked she seemed almost, polite and courteous.

I remembered what Star said that she had been the secretary of education, I wondered if maybe she had even been a schoolteacher, I strangely almost got that vibe from her. In a strict kind of way I mean, but maybe it was just my imagination.

"Alright, so, the secret entrance is blocked, but if the Zebras are going through there they might have some way inside," I said as I examined the schematics for Tenpony Tower and a map of Manehattan to figure out where the entrance was.

"Assuming they know at all, I mean isn't it possible they assumed the tunnel was still open?" Arc Light pointed out.

"Okay, that's a good point," I said, it was true these schematics were about 200 years out of date since Steelhooves had locked it permanently and its not like anypony had gone back and re-written the notes on it. "We might as well check it out, besides if Winter Breeze is smart she'd have it guarded anyway."

"Right, and there's nothing to say she isn't smart," I said with a sigh, I was still working on my own plan to get into Tenpony Tower. The key was going to be to sneak into the tower, but to do that we'd need some sort of diversion.

"Alright, it should be this way," I said and turned us away from the tower and towards the area where the secret passage likely started.

I just had to hope we weren't too late to stop the Zebras from carrying out their plan.

As we passed within sight of Tenpony Tower again I paused a moment, there was a ship hovering just off the tower's top. It wasn't like any ship I had seen before except maybe Nomad City being of a similar design only smaller and not having a city resting on its back, that was honestly a new one for me.

"What is that?" Cherry asked as we all stared at the strange ship.

"Honestly, I have no idea," I said with a tilt of my head, that was another mystery we'd have to uncover later.

"So, I just had a thought, they'll probably have those invisibility cloaks like the ones in Stable 66 had wouldn't they?" Cherry pointed out quietly as we made our way through the tunnel leading towards Tenpony Tower.

"Yeah, probably," I said and looked at Riva for a moment, she had one too but it wasn't enough for what I had in mind. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was thinking, if they're invisible, how do we know they're not right in front of us?" Cherry pointed out.

Okay, that was a good question, but so far we hadn't met any resistance. There hadn't even been any Ghouls yet so maybe they had been cleared out or at least most of them had been, that was a good sign at least.

"Lets just hope they're not, there's only a few of them, so they wouldn't spread themselves out until they hit the tower itself I don't think," I said with a shrug, honestly I had no idea but it was as good a guess as any.

"Right," Arc said, she looked between us for a long moment. "So, exactly how are we going to make it into the tower anyway?"

"I'm still working on that, but I might have an idea," I said with a shrug. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess, lets just hope we'll be able to do it."

As we walked on in silence I thought about what was coming, we were faced with not only some very dangerous Zebras but also with the prospect of invading an enemy occupied Settlement. The odds weren't quite in our favor in this situation and I didn't like it, at this point though we didn't have a choice.

The tunnel didn't last much longer, thankfully for us at least the only Ghouls we found were dead, by the looks of things they had been killed by knives melee weapons. Of course, the strike team didn't want to be discovered if the Enclave had people on either side of the door so they'd have kept quiet.

From up ahead we heard the muffled sound of voices speaking in what I assumed was the Zebra language. We were close to our goal at least, and when we came around the corner we saw something that made us pause a moment.

Four Zebras were in front of the door leading into Tenpony Tower, that much was true, but they had a turret set up aiming back towards the tunnel. In addition there were two Pegasi dressed in Enclave uniforms slumped against the door, that must've been the guards Winter Breeze left outside the door.

Not that it did us a lot of good, but they seemed to be alive at least.

We pulled back out of view in order to talk and plan. We didn't have a lot of good ideas right away, but a thought finally occurred to me.

"Okay, I've got an idea, I'm just going to need Riva's help again," I said and looked at the Zebra, I had to figure out how to communicate just what I had in mind to her quickly and carefully.

First I pointed at her foreleg, the same place where she kept the knife I had borrowed for the fight with Cadith. That was easy enough, she got the message quickly and unstrapped the knife before giving it to me. That was part one of my plan done, now it was time for part two.

I made a motion with my forehooves as if I was raising a hood over my head before pointing at Riva's saddlebags. This one took a little longer to figure out but when she did she chuckled lightly and reached into her bags and pulled out the requested item, her stealth cloak.

"Thank you," I said quietly to Riva and she nodded as I strapped the knife onto my leg and pulled on the cloak. "When I give the signal, take out the turret."

"Good luck," Cherry and Arc said as I pulled the hood over my face and vanished into thin air.

Its a weird sensation being invisible, I couldn't even see my own hooves in front of me so I was half afraid that I'd trip over my own forelegs. That wouldn't have been a fun way to go, being caught because I tripped over my own legs.

Thankfully that didn't happen as I neared the two captured Pegasi. They were conscious but gagged so they couldn't cry out. The Zebras were distracted with trying to get the door open so they didn't hear me whisper to their captives.

"I'm here to get you out of here and stop them, nod if you understand," I whispered to the first Pegasus and she nodded slowly. "Good, don't make a move until I do."

I took out the knife I had borrowed from Riva and used it to cut the ropes on the first guard before moving over to the second one and told him the same thing before I cut the ropes, they were both freed, now it was a matter of being ready.

The final step of my plan was simple, I reached into my bags and took out a Flashbang, whispering to the two Enclave soldiers to close their eyes before I pulled the pin and threw it before closing my own eyes.

There was a flash of light followed by a sound that sent the Zebras into chaos. The two Enclave soldiers took that as the signal and got to their hooves, tackling two of the Zebras as they did before they even got a chance to recover.

At the same time I lowered my hood and fired a shot at one of the Zebras with Liberty, taking him out quickly. There was a small explosion as the turret went out and the rest of the Zebras fell quickly, leaving us all breathless for a moment as if waiting for something else to happen.

When nothing happened the four of us looked at the two Pegasi guards who were disposing of the Zebras and looked at us in return.

"I must say, I wasn't expecting you to come to our rescue," the mare said, she looked a bit surprised as she eyed me. "Not that I'm complaining of course."

"Yeah, you really saved our flanks back there, thank you," the stallion said, I had to admit of all the reactions we could've gotten gratitude was not one I expected.

"You're welcome," I said with a light smile, at least some Enclave soldiers were willing to be reasonable.

"So, uh, what happens now?" Cherry asked.

"Well, normally we'd report everything that happened here," the mare said, I flinched a little at that. "But given the state of shock we were in after being attacked by Zebras, I don't think we'll be remembering who rescued us other than they're some good samareitans."

I laughed a little at that, who knew the Enclave had such a sense of humor? Okay, I wasn't going to argue with that, I looked at the stallion who just nodded in agreement.

"Thank you," Arc said.

"Oh, pass on a message to Winter Breeze for us," I said and the two Pegasi looked a bit surprised. "Well, not for us specifically, but for our Zebra friend here."

I nodded to Riva who took the papers out of her bags and gave them to the two guards. They looked them over and their eyes went wide, they didn't need any explanation, the words on the papers were enough.

"Alright, we'll make sure she sees them," the mare says and put them away. "Are you 100% sure this information is accurate?"

"She was chased here by Zebras working for Stardust that wanted to stop Winter Breeze from getting this information," I said with a shake of my head. "Trust me, I had to fight their boss, they did not want her to get away."

There was a long pause as the two Enclave soldiers processed this information, I even showed them some of the wounds from the knife fight I had with Cadith to prove my story, but they were finally convinced.

"Alright, we'll make sure that she gets this information," the mare said as she put the papers away in her uniform. "The Enclave thanks you for bringing this to our attention."

"You're, welcome," I said, I admitted it was weird to be thanked for helping the Enclave, but hey, it finished the mission at least and made sure that the Enclave didn't become worse.

We let the Enclave soldiers leave first before we hunkered down in one of the nearby buildings for the night. One of us always kept watch to make sure that nopony was sneaking up on us, when it was my turn I checked the supplies we had gotten from the Zebras.

Unfortunately their Stealth cloaks had been damaged in the battle and were useless to us so we only had two, not enough for what I had in mind. We were going to need a way for three of us to get into the Tower with the possibility of getting the Rangers in as well if we were lucky.

That's when I found it, I had nearly missed it the first time going through the supplies but I found it, a piece of paper with hoofwriting scrawled onto it.

"In the event that the Cloaks are damaged or lost, we have a report of a small shipment of Pony stealth devices being at the Manehattan Ministry of Awesome Hub in one of the high level offices."

That was it, that was the answer we needed, StealthBucks. The Ministry of Arcane Science must have made a few and sent them to the Hub before the apocalypse, it was a longshot that they were still there but it was worth a try at least.

"Hey Scootaloo, any luck?" The tired voice of Cherry asked as she looked over at me, she looked like she had just woken up.

"Oh, is my shift over already?" I asked before checking the time on my PipBuck.

"Yeah, sorry, has it been pretty quiet tonight?" Cherry asked and I nodded. "So, umm, there's something that's been kind of bugging me, if you don't mind me asking about it."

"No, go ahead," I said with a nod.

"That place you got the reading from in the Stable-Tec Building, it was called the Scootaloo Memorial Wing right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, you're not really dead, so why is it called that?" Cherry asked.

I paused a little, in all the craziness earlier I hadn't even thought about that. It was actually a really good question that I didn't know the answer to. If S1-B was part of the Stable Network, that meant that only a high level member of Stable-Tec could have renamed it.

Maybe it had been Sweetie Belle, she had been alive and had access to the network so that might explain it. I thought back to the pod that I had woken up in, it had been in a Ministry of Awesome facility so that might mean there's some sort of connection between the MAW and the S.A.D. pods.

That meant we had another reason to go to the Ministry of Awesome building tomorrow, maybe it would help us learn more about exactly what was going on and how I had been saved.

"Cherry, I honestly have no idea, but I think I know where we can find out," I said with a smile. "Luckily there happens to be a place that has something we can use to get into the Tower and may be able to help us get information."

"Where's that?" Cherry asked curiously.

"The Ministry of Awesome Hub here in Manehattan, I found a note saying that there are StealthBucks there," I said and showed Cherry the note, she read it and nodded. "Its worth a try at least."

"Yeah, lets hope we can find something," Cherry said. "Well, its about time for you to get to sleep, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I said with a smile as she sat down next to me. "I've just got a lot on my mind is all, do you think we did the right thing by warning the Enclave?"

"I think we did what had to be done," Cherry said with a nod. "You're right about one thing, Winter Breeze may be dangerous but she's better than anypony else the Enclave might have."

I nodded in understanding as I laid down on my bedding and smiled up at Cherry. "Promise you won't keep me waiting long?"

Cherry just laughed and started taking watch as I curled up a little. Sleep wasn't going to come easy tonight, but I didn't have much of a choice at this point.

Day 2 was over, 5 days remained before the deadline hit.

"Good morning Manehattan, this is President Winter Breeze broadcasting from Tenpony Tower as usual," the voice of the Enclave's president said over the radio, waking me up.

"Doesn't she ever take a day off?" I groaned as I checked the time on my PipBuck, it was almost 0830. "Or at least sleep in?"

"Hey, at least it gets us up early," Cherry said with a chuckle from next to me, she had laid down next to me to sleep sometime the night before. "Its better than an alarm clock."

"More annoying though," I chuckled before listening to the broadcast.

"My little ponies, last night information was brought to my attention about a heinous plot against my administration carried out by one of my most trusted Generals. General Stardust sent Zebra agents in order to try and stage a coup against myself as well as the remaining Wonderbolt Generals in Equestria. Thanks to some brave citizens who wish to remain anonymous and the efforts of the Enclave military, this plan was stopped before it could even breach the walls of Tenpony Tower."

"Well hey, at least she's giving us credit," Arc said with a chuckle as she looked at us.

"Yeah, I'll give her that," I said with a shrug, I honestly hadn't expected that, but she probably figured it made the Enclave look good.

"General Stardust has been tried for treason in absentia and found guilty, the punishment for which will be exile. If she returns to Enclave controlled lands she will be dealt with swiftly and severely. Rest assured Equestria, my administration is still stronger than ever as is my resolve. My vision of a future for Equestria free of fear and want will weather any storm be it from within or without. Ask yourself, what side will you fall on when all is said and done? This is President Winter Breeze signing off."

"She's good, I'll give her that," Cherry said with a yawn. "She almost makes you want to believe in her cause."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," I admitted with a sigh. "Honestly if I didn't know better, I might actually be willing to side with her. Winter Breeze makes some good points, there are problems with this world even today, but I don't think the Enclave is the right solution. We have to come together and try and fix these problems ourselves instead of relying on the Enclave, its the only way it will ever really be fixed."

We all sat in silence for a few minutes as we thought about what was going on. Equestria still had a long way to go before we were truly recovered from the apocalypse, and honestly I had no idea what was really the right call to make.
Right now, we just had a mission to finish.

"So where are we going today?" Arc asked as she got her stuff together.

"The Ministry of Awesome Hub," I said as I nodded back to the north. "It'll at least give us some information on where to go from here."

"Are we sure that's where we should head next?"

"Yeah, it might at the very least provide us with something that'll help us get into Tenpony Tower," I said with a shrug.
Really its a bit of a longshot, but we might as well check it out and hope we find something."

Arc nodded and we got our stuff together before heading out of the building and towards the Ministry of Awesome Hub for Manehattan.

The city still felt empty as we made our way towards the Hub. Maybe it was because I remembered it from before the war when it was still a bustling metropolis instead of a mostly dead city like it was now.

The Ministry of Awesome Hub was just off of Central Park near the Stable-Tec building. It wasn't the first time we had seen the towering building that seemed to dominate this part of the Manehattan skyline but it was the first time we were heading for it directly.

I kept thinking about everything we had learned so far, while the attack on Winter Breeze had been foiled, what would this mean for the future? We had gone out on a limb to save our enemy, but that didn't mean a whole lot.

Heck we didn't even know if the soldiers had really refrained from telling Winter Breeze the truth. While she hadn't said our names in the broadcast that didn't mean a whole lot other than that somepony wanted to keep us anonymous.
I just had to hope that it stayed that way, for all of our sakes.

"Do we know what to expect in there?" Arc asked as we looked up at the tower above us.

"Honestly? I have no idea," I admitted with a shrug. "The Ministry of Awesome was mostly focused on fighting the war and constructing things like the SPP Towers and of course Nomad City. The hubs are mostly used for storage and research and development, so..."

"So, pretty much expect anything," Cherry said and gave me a nod. "I hope you find some answers in here."

"Me too Cherry, me too," I said with a nod as we headed into the hub, it had fallen in a state of disrepair but I could still recognize many of the features from the old hub like the Ministry of Awesome logo on the wall. "Alright, well, the bad news is that I doubt the elevator is working and I'm pretty sure they'll be close to the top of the hub."

"Which means we have to take the stairs, figures," Arc said as I checked the directory to the tower.

"Yeah, but its better than risking the elevator stopping in the middle of the tower even if we got it working," I said with a sigh. "Come on, we need to get to Floor 28."

"What's there?" Cherry asked curiously.

"Research and Development, I'll bet anything that its where the Ministry was testing out the StealthBucks," I said with a nod. "Honestly, its just the best place to start looking at this point, we really don't know where we're going. You'd think Zebras would have more detailed orders."

"Yeah, you would, its odd, maybe they didn't want it to fall into enemy hooves?" I suggested.

"Maybe, but it still feels weird to me," Cherry said and Arc nodded in agreement. "I just wish we could ask our resident Zebra if she knew anything."

We looked at Riva who just shrugged a little before we started up the stairs.

As we climbed the stairs we passed the time by talking mostly, there wasn't any signs of life in the tower at the moment so it was a good sign at least. It might even mean that nopony had disturbed what we were looking for.

"So, what exactly did the Ministry of Awesome do?" Cherry asked as we passed a floor labeled "Information Services."

"Like I said mostly they just helped with the war effort, black ops, that kind of thing really," I said as we kept climbing. "Stuff like the SPP Towers and Nomad City were rare, basically mom just did whatever she wanted and if any ideas crossed her desk that she liked she approved them."

"I see," Cherry said with a nod. "So, its possible she had other projects out there we don't know about?"

Actually, that was a really good question, the Single Pony Project and Nomad City were only known because they were relatively public projects. Nomad City had been kept under wraps sure, but it was bound to come to light eventually given the nature of the project, but what about smaller projects?

It seemed a little strange to me that the Ministry of Awesome had been interested in StealthBucks. While it was true that they could be used in battle, why would they be kept here in a hub instead of being sent to the front lines? It was weird, but I was sure that Rainbow Dash had some sort of reason.

Of course there was the matter of the S.A.D. Pods, the Auto-Docs were more a MoP project so they had to have worked together in some capacity. Given the way the SPP system was supposed to work it made sense that the MAW had developed stasis pods, but why combine them with auto-docs? how many projects did Rainbow Dash have that nopony knew about like this?

That was something I'd have to file away for later, right now we had to focus on getting the information we needed right now.

"Its certainly possible, yes," I said with a nod. "A lot of the projects this ministry did were very hush-hush because of the nature of the work. The truth is even I don't know everything about what my mom worked on here, she could've been working on anything for all I..."

I stopped short when we saw that there was a huge pile of rubble blocking the stairs off at floor 19. When we looked up we saw that part of the stairs had collapsed above us, that figured really.

"What else..." Arc started to say.

"Don't say that, Twilight Sparkle once showed me incontrovertible evidence that sentence is cursed!" I said cutting her off, which caught the Unicorn a little off guard.

"Oh, well, okay then," Arc said as she looked at me strangely for a moment. "So, what's the plan then?"

I looked around and saw the door to the main part of the floor was slightly open and nodded at it. "Lets go in through there and hope we can find some way up to the 28th floor from there."

Arc and Cherry nodded before we got the door open all the way and stepped out into the main part of the floor. It was made up of office space mostly, probably had been rented out to a company or was part of the bureaucracy for the ministry.

"Okay, that's a little creepy," Cherry commented as she looked at a Ministry of Image poster of menacing looking Zebras facing off against ponies in Steel Ranger armor with the caption "TAKE THE FIGHT TO THEM" at the bottom. "What's with these posters anyway?"

"Wartime propaganda," I said and looked at Riva who just shook her head at the poster. "Keep the hearts and minds of the population from joining the striped menace or something like that. I don't particularly like it, but you can probably find posters like this all over Equestria in uninhabited areas."

"Yeah, well, I still don't really like it," Cherry said as we walked past the poster and towards the only other way up we could find right now, the elevator.

"Well on the bright side its not one of the "PINKIE PIE IS WATCHING YOU FOREVER" posters, I swear those things give me the creeps," I said with a shiver as we reached the elevator doors, just as I thought the power was out. "Okay, so then we have to get this thing open."

It took some doing between Arc's magic and using a pipe we found kind of lying around but we got the elevator doors opened. When we looked out we saw, absolutely nothing other than the elevator shaft.

"Okay, so, uh... how do we get up there?" Cherry asked as she looked up the shaft.

"We climb," I said as I nodded to a series of rungs built into the wall. "Its not going to be easy, but I think we can do it."

"Great..." Cherry said with a groan. "Just what I wanted to do when I got up this morning."

"Don't worry, we'll be fine," I said as one by one we got on the ladder and started to climb up.

The climb up the elevator shaft was not a fun one, some of the ladder was unstable so Arc was going first to secure it as best she could with her magic. It felt like we were climbing for hours but it was really only about 20 minutes between when we started and the point when something happened.

I put my foreleg on one of the rungs above me and it wobbled, for a moment it seemed like it was going to be okay but it came loose. I tried to grab hold but I slipped and started falling, I did the only thing I could think to do, I shut my eyes and started pumping my wings as fast as I could.

For the longest moment I just hung there in mid-air, my buzzing wings the only thing keeping me from plunging to a certain death. That being said they were quickly becoming tired, I had no way to know if my wings would hold out long enough for me to get back to the ladder or if maybe my friends could save me.

They didn't, just as I was starting to reach for the ladder my wings gave out and stopped working. I screamed, expecting to feel the sensation of falling but I realized after a moment that I wasn't.

"Scootaloo, its okay, you open your eyes," Cherry's voice called out to me. "We've got you!"

I opened my eyes and smiled to see an orange aura wrapped around my body, they must've seen me fall quickly enough for Arc to catch me in her telekinesis. Arc gave me a nod as she gently moved me over to the ladder and I grabbed hold.

"Thanks," I said breathlessly as I folded my wings back at my sides, that had been a harrowing experience to say the least. "You saved my flank back there."

"Hey, that's what friends are for," Arc said as we started climbing again. "We'll just have to be more careful from here on out."

"Yeah..." I said as we kept climbing up the elevator shaft.

Thankfully nopony fell and by the time we reached the 28th floor we were all relieved to have the whole experience behind us. Still, I hated that I couldn't fly, not even when my life depended on it, I had nearly gotten killed because of my wings.

There wasn't a lot of time to dwell on that however, we had a floor to investigate. Arc got the elevator door open and one by one we climbed out of the shaft and out onto floor 28.

Riva took my hoof and helped me out onto the floor and gave me a smile, wiping her brow as if she was relieved that I was okay. I nodded in understanding as we looked around the floor.

Unlike the 19th this was mostly made up of hallways leading to different rooms, each of them had a designation that showed they were a lab of some sort. I found a terminal at the reception desk and thankfully it was still powered up so I logged into it.

LAB STATUS
UNSEAL LABS
LOGS

I clicked where it said lab status and a few bits of information came up on the screen.

WEATHER CONTROL LAB: SEALED
STEALTHBUCK LAB: SEALED
STASIS LAB: COMPROMISED
WEAPON LAB: SEALED
PURIFICATION LAB: COMPROMISED
BALEFIRE LAB: COMPROMISED

"Why were they studying Balefire here?" Cherry asked curiously as she looked over my shoulder.

"I'm not sure, maybe to figure it out and how to counteract it maybe?" I suggested with a shrug.

"Well, lets get this done," Arc said and nodded to the terminal. "Can you get the labs unsealed from here?"

"Yeah, of course," I said and went back to the main menu and clicked where it said unseal labs, another message came up on the screen.

WARNING, UNSEALING LABS MAY CONTAMINATE EXPERIMENTS. DO YOU WANT TO PROCEED? Y/N.

"Yes, because 200 years in an irradiated city wouldn't compromise them," I said with a chuckle as I hit the y key.

"Labs unsealing, have a nice day," a mare's voice said over the intercom speakers.

"Your mom has a strange sense of humor," Cherry commented as we went down the hall towards the StealthBuck lab.

There wasn't much to find inside but we found a few Stealthbucks, more than a few even. We found enough for what I had in mind and to get a Ranger team into the tower, that was a relief.

"Is this enough?" Cherry asked as we put them in our bags.

"Lets hope so," I said with a nod as we headed back out of the lab, it was now a matter of where to go next. "Lets check out Stasis, it might give us some insight into the S.A.D. pods at least."

They nodded and we walked down the hallway towards the Stasis lab, but before we could get to it there was the all too familiar growling sound coming from a nearby room that had the door opened.

"Please tell me that's not what I think it is..." Arc said with a groan as we readied our weapons for a fight.

With that the first of the Ghouls came into view and charged at us hungrily.

"Why does it always have to be ghouls?" I asked with a groan as I pulled on the trigger to my battle saddle and fired a burst of magical energy into the head of the nearest Ghoul. "Well, I mean other than that we're really close to where a balefire bomb went off."

"I have no idea," Arc said as we fired at the Ghouls, these were ferals so they didn't exactly have enough brains left to not just run at us, but there were more than a few there.

One nearly got close enough to take a bite out of me but its head exploded from a bullet shot by Cherry. I gave the pink mare a smile and we turned our focus back on taking out the encroaching zombies.

"So, I think we know what compromised means for the Balefire Lab," Arc said as she took down the last ghoul. "Is that all of them?"

We waited in silence for a few minutes but the sound of the Ghouls was gone. I checked my EFS and it was clear of any enemies, so that was a good sign at least.

"Come on, lets go check out the stasis lab," I said as we headed towards the lab.

The stasis lab wasn't in very good shape, it looked like it had been ransacked a long time ago. There were a few pods but none of them even looked intact enough to house ponies, at least not alive ones.

"Oh dear Celestia..." Arc said as she recoiled after looking into one of the pods, when I looked I found a mummified corpse of a pony that looked like it had been torn up. "I don't think we're going to find any survivors in here."

We checked the other pods, yeah it looked about the same all around, these pods had failed somehow since they had been put into use. They were of similar design to the one I was in, but I guess these were earlier versions.

We found a terminal and pulled up records on the project from a Doctor Rhinestone. I scrolled through them and was a bit surprised by what I found.

Log 1:

We received new orders from the Ministry Mare this morning, it seems that Rainbow Dash wants to improve on the design of the Stasis Pods we developed for the SPP hub. It seems after seeing a recent project created by the Ministry of Peace she wants to combine the technology of the pods with some new medical technology. Well, she's the boss, we'll call it something like the Stasis Auto Doctor, only with a better name that doesn't have a weird acronym.

Log 2:

The S.A.D. systems (I still can't believe we're calling it that) are still having some problems. I don't know if its because of the interaction between the two systems or what but every time we try to make it work it malfunctions. We're going to attempt to compensate for this using DNA scanning technology and lock it to a certain pony. The next step will be making it work in general.

Log 3:

It worked! Thank Luna we actually managed to make the system work, I sent word to the Ministry Mare during her recent visit to the Hub and she was excited. She said this would be the future of how we helped ponies on the battlefield. While we haven't dealt with the problem of it only working on designated ponies yet, we have made it fairly easy to overwrite the lock and change it to a new pony. Alternatively it is possible to trick it by including a piece of DNA from the pony it was made for.

Log 4:

Rainbow Dash had us construct several new S.A.D. pods to be used in several facilities around Equestria. We shipped a number of them to Canterlot for facility Stable 1-B, another to be kept in storage as a last resort method, and finally one last group to the facility outside of Vanhoover. We're still working on the project here in the lab, but we've made great progress since it was first proposed.

Log 5:

It happened, the unthinkable happened and Equestria's been hit by the Megaspells. We barely escaped with our lives, I've heard Stable 1-B was successful at least but the information on that is tied to Rainbow Dash's terminal. We never did get the program right for the S.A.D. systems, but at this point we don't have much of a choice. It may be our only chance of surviving this.

If we don't make it, remember us as ponies who wanted to help Equestria in its darkest hour. This is Doctor Rhinestone, Chief Scientist for the S.A.D. program for the Ministry of Awesome, signing off.

"Well, that answers that, I guess Rainbow must've put a feather or something in my pod," I said, I vaguely remembered seeing one in the pod, I must've forgotten about it after all this time. "That's, actually pretty informative."

"Well, at least we know that the same device saved you," Arc said and I nodded in agreement. "Anything else before we head to Tenpony?"

I thought for a long moment, normally the answer would be no, but something still nagged at the back of my mind. The terminal said that S1-B was somehow connected to Rainbow Dash's office, which would be just upstairs. There were still unanswered questions about what had happened in S1-B and I had only one place I could go to find the answers.

"No, not yet," I said simply. "We're going upstairs to my mom's office, its the last place I need to go before I'm done here."
My friends exchanged a glance, I wasn't sure what they were going to say to be honest. It probably sounded like I was putting my own wants ahead of the mission. We were almost done here, this was really the last thing we had to do.

"Okay Scootaloo," Arc finally said and Cherry nodded in agreement.

I took a moment to grab the holotapes on the S.A.D. systems, they might come in handy further down the line. I put them in my saddlebags and we started out of the lab and towards the stairs.

Thankfully the stairs were intact here so we didn't have to go through the hassle of climbing up the elevator shaft again (I was not looking forward to doing that on our way down). The door was locked, no real surprise there given that its been abandoned for so long, but we were able to unlock it quickly enough. So we found ourselves in Rainbow Dash's office for when she came to Manehattan.

It took up the top two floors of the tower, we made our way through the bottom floor before reaching the top. For a moment I almost hoped that Rainbow Dash would be there somehow, but no such luck, it was empty.

I sighed a little and looked out the bay window behind Rainbow's desk at Central Park. From up here we could see a lot of the city, even Tenpony Tower out in the distance and that weird ship that was hovering near it.

I turned and looked around again, I noticed something odd against the wall there was a glass case that held a rifle inside it.
When I trotted over and looked at it, I realized that it was painted a faded orange color, it was an energy rifle that much was certain, and carved into the stock was my cutie mark, it had etched into it the words "SOAR."

"Interesting choice," Cherry commented as she looked at the weapon over my shoulder. "What do you think?"

"I don't know what to think honestly," I said, I was a little surprised, I had no idea that Rainbow had made this. "Lets see if the terminal says anything about it."

I pulled up the terminal records and smiled a little when I looked to the side and saw a picture of me and Rainbow. I smiled a little, I remembered when we took this picture, it was the first picture we had taken together as a family after Rainbow had adopted me, I gingerly picked it up and placed it in my saddlebags, I wasn't going to leave this behind.

I pulled up the main menu and looked at the options:

MINISTRY MARE RECORDS
SOAR INFORMATION
STABLE 1-B LOGS
OPEN DISPLAY CASE

When I clicked on Soar Information a new page pulled up and I smiled a little.

The Stealth Overload Assault Rifle or SOAR is an experimental new magical energy rifle developed by the weapons division of the Ministry of Awesome. Originally developed to produce a more powerful energy beam, it was given an additional enchantment that allowed it to overload the enchantment systems for Zebra Stealth cloaks temporarily.

While the rifle is being developed for mass production, the Ministry Mare Rainbow Dash has secured one of the prototypes to be kept in her office. This weapon will make it difficult for the Zebras to continue their infiltration tactics and we hope to present it at the upcoming meeting with the Ministry of Wartime Technology.

Well, I guess it was never quite put into use, but it was at least going to be useful now, I hoped. I actually wondered if it did anything to Power Armor systems, but that was a question for another time.

This was it, the moment of truth, I pulled up the Stable 1-B logs. There wasn't a lot new that I learned to be honest, most of it was just records of the pods being active up until yesterday when they had opened.

I scrolled through the logs and stopped on one in particular, it was dated just a few months after the door closed and it seemed to contain a message in the log from Stable 2.

"We've lost a lot of good ponies, friends, family, loved ones that we won't ever get to see again. To honor the memory of those we have lost and to mark our hope for the future of Equestria, I am renaming Facility S1-B to the Scootaloo Memorial Wing. I wish all of you the best of luck and hope that someday you'll be able to help Equestria rebuild. Authorization CMC-S2-Beta, Stable-Tec Head of Public Relations, Sweetie Belle."

It was true then, Sweetie Belle had named it after me, a tear rolled down my face as I thought about Sweetie again. It was hard to think about it but I missed her, I missed her more than anything right now.

It was a strange mix of feelings of both joy and sadness, she had named it in honor of the pony she had loved most... but it meant she was afraid I was dead. I sighed a little and was surprised to feel Cherry wrap her forelegs around me.
"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I said with a nod as I looked back at the terminal, I was almost done here. I went through Rainbow Dash's logs, there wasn't much there, mostly battle reports, but there was one that caught my attention because it was labeled SOAR.

"The new energy weapon was perfected today, its a handy little rifle that packs a nasty punch. It reminds me a little of the kid, a shining light of hope in the dreariness that is Equestria. I know its kind of silly but I had it customized so it goes with her. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get to give it to her someday. I know she's going through a lot right now, maybe in peacetime.

Scootaloo, if you ever read this, I love you kid. Take good care of this gun and she'll take care of you, she's all yours."

I smiled a little and nodded. "I love you too mom."

I clicked the option to open the case and removed Freedom to slip SOAR into it and picked up the ammunition nearby. I gave my friends a nod, it was time to go finally.

The trip down was easy enough, to make things go faster we took the stairs as far down as we could go before climbing down the elevator shaft to floor 19. Schooner was waiting for us and wagged his tail when he saw us come out of the elevator shaft and we took the stairs down together.

It had been quite the trek through the Ministry Hub, but our real job was still ahead of us. We now had to make it into Tenpony Tower without being detected, and we couldn't do it while visible, at least not most of us.

"So, you want the three of us to go in, wearing these cloaks and Stealthbucks?" Arc asked as she picked up the StealthBuck and eyed it curiously. "While Riva and Schooner what, walks in the front door?"

"That's the basic idea, yeah," I said as I was explaining it to Riva through motions. "To be honest its a tricky maneuver, but Riva's the only one of us the Enclave doesn't know about."

"Plus she was the one who brought the information to the Enclave, that might help," Cherry pointed out. "It should work, I hope."

"Yeah, it should," I said as I fitted the Stealth Cloak over me. "If we're lucky at least, lets hope they'll let Riva in."

"Right," Cherry said as she put the cloak over her, Arc was going to be using the StealthBucks that we didn't give over to the
Rangers. "Are we ready to go?"

"Ready," I said as me and Cherry put on our cloaks and Arc turned on her StealthBuck, we had a tough trek ahead of us and the only way to do it was to stay close to each other.

As we neared the entrance to Tenpony Tower we saw that it was well guarded by Pegasi dressed in power armor. Just our luck really, but we didn't have much of a choice but to push on.

"Well, well, we've got a Zebra here, what do you want stripes?" One of the guards asked as Riva approached.

When Riva didn't answer the guards exchanged looks as if they were confused for a moment. Riva shook her head and reached into her bag to take out some papers that I had given her in order to make her story more believable.

"So, you can't speak Equestrian, I see," the guard said as he looked the papers over and nodded in understanding. "So why do you want to enter... oh here we are, you were the one that brought us that information on Stardust, can you prove it?"

That was the hard part, but Riva was one step ahead of them, she had diplomatic papers in her bags that she removed and gave to the soldiers.

"We'll have to call..." the soldier started to say before he was cut off by the sound of a familiar voice.

"There is no need for that Sergeant, I will look them over myself," the calm voice of a mare said as she stepped into view and my blood ran cold.

She was a Pegasus mare with a light blue coat and a flowing blue mane with a cutie mark of a snowflake. She was dressed in a suit and and a blue tie with the symbol of the Enclave on the collar.

Somehow I just knew this was Winter Breeze.

"Madam President, this is highly irregular," the guard said, he tried to maintain a calm tone but it was obvious he wasn't used to this.

"Nonsense, if she is who she says she is, then I may owe her my life, its the least I can do to welcome her to Tenpony Tower," Winter Breeze said before turning to Riva, she surprised me by speaking in the Zebra language. "Ego recipiam vos arcem, Riva de Tribus Zencori."

"Loquetur lingua mea vos can?" Riva asked, I could tell she was as surprised as I was.

"Quippe cum non didicerit olim luvenis," Winter Breeze said with a smile, she was ceretainly polite at least. "Et in societatem Stardust legi tradit olim potuit sperare auxilium."

"Una spes," Riva said with a nod. "Cum autem cognovissent Stardust consilium habuimus sciebant auctoritatem suam interponat, pro vobis."

"Puto autem populus tuus, et opportune axulium tuum," Winter Breeze answered.

This was incredibly surreal for me, even if we couldn't understand them it seemed to me like the two were having a normal conversation. I didn't have much time to dwell on it though as Winter Breeze seemed satisfied with what she had learned.

"Alright sergeant, I'm satisfied," she said finally. "This Zebra means us no ill will, let her in."

"Yes ma'am," the guards said and after Winter Breeze walked off they parted and allowed Riva into the tower with the three of us following close behind..

I smiled a little, we had finally made it inside Tenpony Tower. I wasn't sure what was waiting for us inside, but we had to make sure that we made it through this alive.

Tenpony Tower was still as active as it had been when we last came here, but this time the usual security forces were replaced by soldiers in Enclave uniforms and Power Armor. We had to figure out where we were going to hide out and figure out our next step before we could do anything.

Thankfully the Followers of the Apocalypse were still open and had minimal security, I guess the Enclave figured that they wouldn't cause much of a problem. Focus was inside now talking with with a Unicorn stallion and they looked up when Riva entered.

"Can we help you?" Focus asked curiously as he looked at Riva for a long moment.

"Hopefully," I said as I lowered my hood at the same time Cherry did while Arc turned off her StealthBuck. "We're going to need your help to retake Tenpony Tower from the Enclave."

"Oh, I see," Focus said as he pushed his glasses up and looked at me closely. "I must say, I didn't expect to see you back here right now, what's going on outside the tower?"

"The NCR's been forced into a ceasefire with the Enclave," I said with a sigh as I looked out the window, there weren't any ponies heading this way right now at least. "If we don't break their control over the city, they may have to surrender."

"Right," Focus' companion said with a shake of his head. "So what, you snuck into Tenpony Tower and then what?"

"Well, we're still working on that part," I said as we moved into one of the back rooms. "We've got a group of Applejack's Rangers ready to attack the Tower, but we have to get the lay of the land here so to speak."

"Well, we can help with that at least," Focus said with a nod. "There are ponies in the Tower who aren't happy with the Enclave either, but it'll take a lot to get them organized into anything resembling a resistance against them."

We nodded in understanding, of course it wouldn't be nearly as easy as just walking into the tower but we were at least making progress. I sighed a little and just hoped that we'd be able to figure it out.

"So what would it take?" Cherry asked.

"Some sort of grand statement, we have to prove the Enclave isn't as powerful as they seem to be," the other stallion said as we looked over a rough map of the tower. "They're holding DJ Pon3, I mean Xiraia in the upper levels along with the Twilight Society. They've also been confiscating a lot of the equipment and taking it up to the storage, here."

As we studied the map we almost missed the sound of the door to the main room opening and the sound of a pony coming inside.

"Inspection!"

"Horseapples, I didn't think they'd be coming here today," Focus said as we struggled to get our cloaks back on as the door was thrown open.

"Stop right there!" One of the Enclave soldiers dressed in a uniform shouted as he readied his battle saddle.

"Buck it," I said with a groan as we opened fire, which caught the Enclave a little off guard but they quickly returned fire.
The fighting was intense, I felt like every shot fired was going to be the last but the Enclave was good, too good really. That's when I felt it, a sharp pain in my chest as a bullet struck me, and the whole world seemed to slow down.

I don't remember the rest of the fight really, all I remember is looking down to see blood coming out of a wound in my chest. I couldn't believe it, after all I had been through, was this really how I was going to go out? A bullet to the chest before we could even start our real plan?

I didn't have much time to dwell on it as the world around me turned black.

"Is she going to be okay Doc?" The distorted voice of Cherry asked as I came back to consciousness.

"I think so, but we don't have all the equipment to repair the damage to her lung here," the voice of the stallion from before said. "Did you two know about this?"

"No, she never told us," Arc said and Cherry shook her head, at least I think it was Cherry, was kind of a pink blur.

"Told you what?" I asked with a groan.

"Oh, she's awake!" Cherry said as she ran over to me and took my hoof in her's. "Thank the Goddesses, I was afraid we were going to lose you."

"Yeah, I'm glad to be here too Cherry," I said with a smile as I squeezed Cherry's hoof gently. "What were you talking about before?"

"Scootaloo, are you aware your lungs and heart are bio-mechanical in nature?" The doctor said, I blinked a little, I had no idea what to say to that. "Its what kept you alive, the bullet hit your lung and bruised it. Its damaged, but not beyond repair."

"Well, that's good," I said with a groan. "What about the Enclave soldiers?"

"They're alive, we knocked them out and I extracted their memories of the fight, they'll wake up with a nasty hangover and nothing else," the Doctor said with a shake of his head. "These organs are more sophisticated than anything I've ever seen before, where did you get them?"

"I don't... wait, maybe from the S.A.D. Pod!" I said trying to get up but the pain just made me want to lay back down.

"The, sad pod?" The Doctor asked.

"Stasis Auto Doc Pod, I was in one for over 200 years," I said with a shake of my head. "I've got records on them in my saddlebags if you want, they might be able to help."

"Okay, we'll look them over," the doctor said and sighed a little. "Scootaloo, you're in bad shape to be honest. The organs are starting to malfunction a little and while we can keep you stabilized, you're not going to be able to move until we can repair them, and we don't have the equipment for that here even if we knew how they worked."

"So, what am I going to do?" I asked and looked between my friends.

"You'll have to stay here while we get the equipment to repair them," Cherry said softly. "Its in storage in one of the upper levels along with the expert on this kind of thing, we're going to have to go there."

"And hope the Enclave doesn't stop us," Arc finished.

"Great, I'm out of commission for this one..." I said and laid back. "What will you have to do Doc?"

"Well, honestly we need to sedate you to make sure that you don't damage your organs any more," the doctor said. "You'll be okay, I promise."

I nodded and laid back on the hospital bed. The doctor took out a syringe and injected it into my leg, I looked at my friends for a long moment, Cherry gave me a smile and squeezed my hoof again.

"We'll be here when you wake up," she said with a soft smile. "I promise. I..."

With that, the world around me went dark once more.

LEVEL UP!
Perk Received: Bionic Pony
Details: Your body has been enhanced with special bio-mechanical organs. You get an extra point in Endurance and can run while using less AP.