Sanctuary was now beyond their reach. Tarnish felt peculiar and had trouble remembering everything that had happened in the past day or so. He had trouble finding his way out of the maze of passages that he had followed to reach the door to the Moochik’s Study. It was only after a lot of searching did they return to the round room with the painting of the Tree of Harmony, and the passage that led back out. Tarnish hurried, avoiding any lingering in the dangerous room, and he did not look at the painting while he passed.

It wasn’t long before they had found themselves back in the teardrop-shaped room near the entrance. The other three doors beckoned, waiting for them to step through, and Daring Do studied them, trying to determine which one. The second door on the left, the one next to the first one they had entered, there were tracks in the dust, the odd tracks of automaton feet. The passage also sloped downwards at a somewhat steep incline.

“Do we dare?” Daring Do asked of her companions while she peered down the passage.

“We might be able to shut them down completely.” Tarnish stood there, chewing on his lip, not liking what he was thinking. He felt rested, refreshed and reinvigorated after sleeping in a safe, warm space. “For all we know, we might have already taken down most of them. Maybe that’s why they were reclaiming one another for scrap, there might not be many of them left.”

“Who are you trying to convince, Mister Teapot?” Daring asked with a bit of dry snark.

“Myself, mostly,” Tarnish replied with an equal measure of sarcasm.

Daring Do, looking up at Tarnish with a lopsided smirk, blinked once and shook her head. “You would have been a spectacular failure as a traveling salespony, Mister Teapot. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, most likely, but I bet I could make the ladies love me… every mare loves chocolate delivered to her door. I don’t need to be convincing, I just need to arrive—but never arrive too early.” Tarnish did his best deadpan delivery, and it worked. After a second, Daring Do was completely destroyed, Rainbow began giggling, and Vinyl wheezed with silent laughter, leaving Tarnish feeling good about himself. He grinned, taking satisfaction in making his beloved companions laugh.

Moving away from his giggling companions, Tarnish began to study the tracks on the floor of the teardrop-shaped room. The other three entrances had tracks going in and out, but one of them had many. Pulling out the ancient spectacles, he saw that the door with the most tracks was called ‘Services.’ He never quite understood what that meant when he saw it on directories or doorways. It seemed like so vague a term just slapped in a haphazard way onto everything.

Just looking at the door labeled ‘Services’ gave him a bad feeling—it made his blood run cold while the base of his ears prickled—and he knew that at some point, they would have to go in this direction. It would be required, unavoidable, and necessary. He shivered while his companions worked out the last bit of their laughter, and he tightened his magical grip on his shield.

‘Research and Development’ looked promising, but so did ‘Thaumaturgical Genetics’.

This wing, Research and Development, wasn’t anything at all like Harmony Logistics, which had appeared pristine and abandoned. No, this place had seen fighting; the walls were marred, the floors were damaged, and there was sooty smears all over the place. The passage spiraled upwards, then opened up into a massive indoor arboretum that—even in its decrepit, unkempt state—took Tarnish’s breath away.

The sight of familiar blue flowers was somehow comforting, but Tarnish did not lower his guard. Overhead, there was blue sky and a warm, glowing sun, but the image flickered now and again, revealing that the illusion—although quite convincing—wasn’t real. Trees, shrubs, and botanical wonders grew in the sprawling indoor garden: life had gone wild here without caretakers.

Tarnish began to wonder what the magic of the artificial ley lines had done to the flora.

The companions weren’t even in the arboretum proper when they saw the rotten, decomposing remains at the foot of a tree. There wasn’t much left, a few fragments poking in and out of the ground, the plants had reclaimed most of it. What could be seen however, was rusted, crumbling armor of some old, ancient type, including a damaged looking metal saddlebag. The old, battered steel was covered in ruddy flakes.

Perhaps unnerved, Daring Do shuddered and she gave herself a hearty shake.

Inside the old container, there was a crystal rod, which Tarnish recognised right away. Touching it with magic would activate it and that would reveal its secrets. The light inside was dim: faint, flickering, even more so than the first they had found. Looking around, it didn’t seem dangerous, and there were no signs of danger, at least not yet.

It was Vinyl who picked up the slender crystal and activated it.

“—I can’t believe she did it… she actually did it!” This voice was feminine and full of panic. “The automatons are processing all of us now. Why? I’m a pureblood! My blood is pure! I am perfect. Why am I being hunted like all the others? I can’t fly! Nopony can fly! Specimen Zero is the cause of this. Maybe if I’m lucky, I can make it to the upper reaches, to the city of Skyreach at the top of the mountain. Maybe something can be done to Specimen Zero to undo this, but I don’t know how. I think I’ll try to scale the lift shaft—NO! NO! I’m a pureblood! Stop!”

Each of the companions reacted to the buzzing sounds that could be heard, and the screaming.

“Damn you Spear Breaker, damn you, you heartless bitch!”

The crystal crumbled into gritty purple-blue powder and the voice from long ago was silenced.

Tarnish looked at Vinyl, Vinyl looked at Tarnish, and Daring Do looked at Rainbow Dash. Right away, Tarnish had questions, so many questions, and there was so much he wanted to say, but he kept silent. Rainbow looked at the remains, what little was left of them, and a sad expression appeared upon her face.

“Rainbow, are you alright?” Daring asked.

Even though she heard the question, and even looked at Daring, Rainbow Dash did not reply right away. The sky blue pegasus looked around the arboretum, her ears drooping, and her tail sagging. When she did respond, her voice was even raspier than usual. “I’m just thinking of home… of Cloudsdale. There’s a reason I left. While it’s nice to visit, it’s not a place I want to stay.”

“Rainbow, I’m sorry—”

“No need to apologise, Daring.” Rainbow’s expression hardened and her sadness vanished. “Foals are cruel, ya know? They say stuff—they’ll say anything until they find something that gets under your skin. They did it to Fluttershy, and they did it to me, and… I guess… it is just one of those things that happens to everypony at some point. Bullying.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Tarnish nodded, but had no words to say.

“It motivated me to be better. I’m a better pegasus, a better athlete, and a better friend. I won’t go as far to say that bullying helped me, but it sure did motivate me. I got out of Cloudsdale and away from their… rigid, I wanna say? Yeah, their rigid thinking.”

“You call it rigid thinking, I call it bigotry.” The dry, razor-sharp snark in Daring’s voice could not be missed, and her professional, dispassionate demeanour now seemed permanently cast aside. “Come, let’s keep going. There are a lot of doors here and much ground to cover. None of us have an idea where the controls to this place might be.”

“If there is a city, that is a good place to start looking,” Tarnish offered.

“If there is a city”—Daring Do’s mouth contorted into a sour frown—“it might yet be still defended. Automatons, golems, constructs, equusculi—”

“What?” Rainbow interjected. “What are those?”

“Equusculi?” Daring Do shivered and her wings flapped against her sides while a look of intense revulsion crept over her face. “Think of them as… tiny… or large... golems made of meat. Yes, artificial life constructs. I’ve encountered them a few times. The little ones don’t look dangerous, but don’t let looks fool you.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Rainbow’s lip curled back in disgust and her eyes narrowed. “Made of meat, eh?”

“We’re all made of meat,” Tarnish remarked, trying to be helpful.

“Shut up!” Reaching out with her hoof, Rainbow slugged Tarnish on the leg, but it was a playful gesture, not a painful one. “I thought you said you were made of chocolate, Big Guy.”

There was a joke here, about chocolate and meat, but Tarnish refrained from making it. It did make him think of Maud though, who called his mottled spots her ‘chocolate chips.’ He laughed a bit, and it felt good to do so. The mood of the group had improved a great deal since their rest in a safe, secure space.

Daring Do let out an impatient whinny, and Tarnish knew it was time to look around.

The doors to the steam powered lift were open, but damaged. The metal was bent, crumpled, but to Tarnish’s surprise it wasn’t rusty. It looked like steel, but he couldn’t be sure. There were huge scratches on the door, and puckered places as well, no doubt caused by bullets. The shaft itself was ominous, black, and peeking down into the black depths for just a second left Tarnish with a sensation of vertigo.

Of the lift itself, there was no sign, and the controls were damaged.

Vinyl, cautious, crept forward, her horn glowing, no doubt ready to cast a light spell to illuminate the shaft. Tarnish watched, his mood excellent even with his moment of vertigo, and just as Vinyl’s spell was about to happen—everything went wrong. A brass head popped up out of the darkened shaft, followed by a gleaming brass torso, and it was Rainbow who reacted first.

She grabbed Vinyl and hurled her out of the way. Vinyl tumbled away, slid over the smooth stone path, getting a few scrapes, and came to a skidding halt in the nearby overgrown grass. Daring Do let out a shrill whinny of warning, and Tarnish raised the Bellringer while his lower jaw fell open.

“AAAAAAAAAAH SONOFABITCH!” he cursed as he yanked the Bellinger’s release lever. There was a terrific sound—WOOSH!—and then the brass mechanoid’s arms started flailing. As it continued flailing about—reaching, grasping, trying to find its missing head—the mechanoid slipped and fell back down the dark, bottomless shaft that no doubt led to Skyreach’s deepest, darkest locations, the very bowels of the facility.

Sections of one door and part of the frame were now gone, the metal sheared off by the force of superheated steam. Tarnish reloaded, fumbling with his weapon, having a hard time remembering what to do in the heat of the moment, and just as he had another bullet secured in place, another brass head popped up out of the darkness, like a groundhog coming out to check and see if it was still winter.

For a very brief moment, a mere microsecond, Tarnish locked eyes with the automaton, and on future reflection, he would wonder if the mechanoid had been as surprised as he was, seeing as how it had just seen one of its companions become mechanically-separated brass components. But that would be later, in hindsight, and not right now. Gritting his teeth, Tarnish pulled the trigger once more on his steam powered musket.

He missed.

Even at point blank range, he missed, and no wonder, with how his weapon was trembling in his terrified grasp. The blast of steam did considerable damage to the mechanoid, and part of its head was gone, dissolved from the force of the escaping high pressure vapour. One brass-fingered hand shot out of the lift opening, with one middle finger extended, and the damaged automaton began to crawl out.

“No!” Daring Do shouted as she bull-rushed forwards. “No! I think not! Away with you!” Whipping herself around, she bucked out with her powerful hind legs and kicked the mechanoid in the remains of its damaged, partially missing face, sending it flying back down the shaft.

There was the thunking sound of metal on metal as it fell down the hole.

“I burned my frogs on his face,” Daring Do hissed as she danced around. “Hot! Hot! Hot!” She ran over to the grass, trying to get cool, cursing and mumbling about her injuries.

Worried for his boss, Tarnish, terrified, feeling a strong urge to take a piss, reloaded his weapon, not taking his eyes off of the shaft for even a second. He had two companions that could look after Daring Do. This time, he hoped that he wouldn’t miss, but he wasn’t confident, and his weapon shook something awful.

“Submit for processing!” something shouted from within the shaft.

“Come up and make me!” Tarnish bellowed, his long, supple neck giving him a throaty resonance not found in most diminutive, short necked equines. When angered, Tarnish sounded scary, though he was not aware of this fact. He was just trying to sound brave, because the simple truth was, he didn’t like fighting, even if he was rather good at it.

“Request granted!” the grating mechanical voice replied, and a second later, a featureless brass face appeared in the shaft. It was already in dire need of repair, having only one damaged eye.

For the third time, Tarnish fired the Bellringer, and this time, he did not miss. With much sound and fury, the brass projectile struck the mechanoid right in the middle of his brass torso and cut him in half, revealing crystalline fibres, wafers, and the arcanotech of its inner workings.

The upper half fell down the shaft, pulling the lower half—still connected—down with it.

Daring Do was still shuffling around in the grass, rubbing her hind frogs against its cool dampness, trying to alleviate the burning sensation that pained her scalded flesh. Vinyl was on her hooves again, grass stained, scraped up a bit, but fine. Rainbow was standing in a bipedal stance, some aggressive hoof-fu posture, ready to aid Tarnish should he need it.

“Anypony else want some?” Tarnish bellowed, his voice echoing up and down the shaft. While speaking, he began to reload his weapon and made ready to shoot again. He wasn’t taking any chances, that much was for sure.

“No,” a faint voice replied from somewhere up above.

“Are you sure? I brought enough for everypony!” Tarnish hollered. Having reached his own boiling over point, menacing curls of steam rose from the pointed tip of his horn. “Herauskommen!” Tarnish shouted, trying to sound as mean and as intimidating as possible. He had picked up a bit of the lingua franca in his travels, and certain words just sounded scary. “Komm raus und spiele!”

“Nein!” the mechanical voice returned. Then, after a few seconds, it added, “You speak the language of war. When I return, it will be with a great many reinforcements. Together, we will process you, Kriegspony.”

Then, the voice in the darkness went silent, and Tarnish waited.

“Did I… did I just scare a mechanoid?” Tarnish asked aloud of nopony in particular.

“I think you did,” Rainbow replied, all too glad to stroke Tarnish’s ego.

Shaking his head, sounding worried, Tarnish backed away from the opening. “What have I done?”

Author's Notes:

I gave myself brain damage. The steam coming out of the end of Tarnish's gun would be about 540 degrees fahrenheit, give or take 20 degrees. That's Paris Hilton levels of hot.