“In a world full of suspicion, treachery and hunters - we’re the synths’ only friends...”

Metro.

The Manehattan metro had been built long before most of the surrounding city, long before Four Star had decided to expand upwards and build the massive monorail that now cluttered the jagged Manehattan skyline. We had learned that little fact in history class back in the Stable. It was yet another piece of seemingly random information that everypony always wondered why the hell we were being taught it when we were never supposed to leave the Stable.

It hadn’t been a long walk from the Fluttershy Medical Center to the Metro. The sky was still cast in the defused morning sunlight. I supposed nowhere in Manehattan was very far from the metro, they had stations scattered everywhere around the city.

“So let me get this straight,” Nurse Heartbeat said, looking down the steps into the darkness of the metro station below us. We had stopped at the entrance to the metro, none of us really wanting to walk down into the dark tunnels below Manehattan. “We are heading into one of the most dangerous places in Manehattan to find a secret organization that no pony has ever heard about, so that they can help us find an even more secret organization that even less ponies have heard about and scarcely even believe exists?”

I nodded confidently. “Yup, that about sums it up. Any problems with that?”

Heartbeat gave me a sly grin. “Not at all. I must have just picked the craziest group of wasteland ponies to travel with.”

“What exactly makes these metro tunnels so deadly?” Xayah asked, trying to spy something in the darkness below.

“You mean besides the ridiculous amount of ghouls?” Pyre said, giving Xayah a grin. “Well for starters the place is crawling with raiders and bandits trying to get away from the harsh elements. But the place is also full of lethal amounts of radiation, taint, manticores, monsters best left unnamed, prewar experiments gone wrong, and pretty much anything else that you can think of.”

Xayah gulped and gave a nervous chuckle. “Sounds lovely.”

“So, how do we expect to find the Friendship Express?” Mirra asked from her usual perch atop Pyre’s back. “I’ve never been into the metro myself, but I’ve heard it's practically a labyrinth down there.”

“We… uh… We follow the Friendship Trail…” I stammered, not really knowing what that was actually supposed to mean. For all I knew, that had nothing to do with the metro at all. I quickly pulled out the talisman Emissary gave me. “This should help us somehow… I hope.”

“Very reassuring,” Brisk deadpanned, looking over the talisman warily as we slowly started making our way down the steps and into the tunnels. “Do you even have the slightest idea of how to use that thing.”

I grimaced in response. We moved into the subway station. It was nearly pitch black, only the dim morning light following us down the stairs letting us make out the brick tunnel

“Well, I don’t know how to use it exactly… or like… at all...” Brisk facehoofed in response.

"I'm liking this plan of your less and less the more I realize you literally don't know what's happening."

I was about to put the talisman away when it started glowing a faint yellow. It wasn't a strong glow, but enough to catch my eye. I squinted at it, slowly slowing to a stop. “Hold up guys, I think… I think it’s doing something…”

Pyre glanced over my shoulder to see the talisman. “It’s… glowing?”

I nodded dumbly, not really knowing what that meant. I looked up and glanced around the dark tunnel we had just entered. It just looked like a ruined metro station. Dull and grey. Then I noticed something glowing on the wall with the same faint, pale glow that was emanating off of the talisman. I cautiously walked up to it, not knowing what to expect.

“What is it?” Brisk asked, trailing behind me a few steps.

I looked it over. It was a large metal plaque in the shape of a circle. The centre of the plaque held the image of a lantern, matching the talisman I held in my hoof and around the edge of the circle were the words, ‘Manehattan - The Friendship Trail’.

“I think I might have found what we’re looking for,” I said, not really knowing how to take our seemingly unfounded good luck. Remembering how I had seen Flask use his talisman back in Fetlock during our first visit there, I raised the talisman and touched it to the plaque.

Something clicked behind the wall. I took a step back, eyes wide as I watched the brick tiles on the wall of the tunnel start flipping around with the grinding sound of stone on stone. Slowly, a red brick line had formed in the wall, traveling down the tunnel and out of sight.

“The fuck did you just do?” Pyre asked, looking down the tunnel. “And… what the fuck? I’m so confused.”

“I think I just found the friendship trail,” I said, trying to look smug. Truth was I was just as dumbfounded as the rest of them.

“So do we just… follow it?” Xayah asked, tapping her striped hoof on the red brick line in the wall.

I glanced back and forth between all my friends. None of them seemed to have an answer. Finally, I sighed. “I guess so. Let's get moving before any of those things Pyre mentioned find us.”

“You did what!?” Heartbeat gasped, his face filling with shock.

I smirked, knowing full well how crazy it sounded. “Yup, detonated hundreds of Balefire bombs around me and walked out just fine.”

The Friendship Trail had gone on for far farther than any of us had expected. After about half an hour of walking I was beyond lost. To pass the time, I had been telling Heartbeat about our adventures across the wasteland. He had started off fairly interested, commenting only every once and a while to get clarification on something, but as the story continued, his eyes had grown wide with shock and he seemed to be completely lost for words.

“You… that’s insane!” Heartbeat slapped his face with a forehoof. “I mean… no, that’s exactly what I mean. That’s absolutely crazy! How did you even get out of there?”

I gestured over to Mirra, who was listening quietly from atop Pyre’s back. “This one here pulled me out with the help of a friend of hers,” I said. I turned to face Mirra. “A friend who I’m still waiting on you to tell me about.”

Mirra shrugged. “I’ve pretty much told you everything about him. He’s pretty mysterious. I never know when he’s going to show up.”

I glanced up at Mirra’s horn. It seemed to be working properly again, now that she had had a few days to rest after pulling me from the exploding MAS tower. “Mirra, I have to ask. Now that your magic is back to full, can you turn into more than just foals?”

Mirra cocked her head to the side a little. “Do you know nothing about changeling magic, Amber?” I didn’t and said as much. Mirra gave a small sigh. “Changelings have trouble transforming into anything larger than they already are. Most changelings can't turn into a fully grown pony until they are fully grown themselves. With a few exceptions of course…”

“Exceptions like what?” I asked, curious. I always loved learning new things, and there had been next to nothing about changelings to learn about in Stable 25.

“Well if a changeling studies and practices hard enough or has exceptionally powerful magic, it’s not unheard of for them to be able to turn into something larger than normal. Changeling queens of course can do anything they damn well please and Changeling generals can often turn into giant creatures, even at a young age, though they’re restricted to a specific colour scheme,” The tiny changeling said, rolling onto her back and lounging on top of Pyre as if the large raider were a couch.

“Changeling queens? As in plural? There are more than one?” I questioned, not really sure how to take that bit of information.

Mirra nodded. “Well, duh. Obviously there was Chrysalis, but you don’t think she managed to populate an entire race by herself did you?” Mirra rolled her eyes as if that had been obvious. “There are hundreds of different hives all over Equus. I’m not saying Changeling queens are common or anything like that… they’re about as common as changeling generals… but there are more of them out there. At least there used to be.”

“You keep mentioning changeling generals. What are those?” Brisk asked, butting into the conversation. Until now, I hadn’t realized he’d been eavesdropping.

“They’re rare, usually a changeling queen only ever gives birth to a general once,” Mirra explained, once again shifting her weight to a more comfortable position. “They’re immensely powerful, designed specifically for defending the hive. Unlike most changelings, they aren’t made for infiltration, so their trade-off for unmatched shapeshifting and combat ability is that the forms they change into are always stuck to the same colours,” Mirra thought for a second. “The last Changeling general I know of was named Pharynx. I think he died back in the war.”

“Aside from Transformation, what other powers do changelings have?” Heartbeat asked, joining in on our questioning.

Mirra glanced around the dark tunnel quickly. “What is this? Ask Mirra about her changelingness day?”

I shrugged. “It’s interesting and we don’t really have anything better to do until we find out where this Friendship Trail leads,” I admitted, gesturing to the red, brick line that raced along the wall beside us. “Might as well talk about something.”

Mirra sighed. “Well, lets see. Shapeshifting is our main ability obviously, but we have a few more. Our horns work about the same as unicorns, so we can do most any spell with the right amount of training. I for one am fairly adept at levitation and teleportation. Changelings also have a pretty good sense of smell, it's how we tell eachother apart,” She tapped her chin for a second as she tried to figure out how to word the rest of what she wanted to say. “We can also spit wads of mucus out of our mouth as well, but that's only good if you want to cocoon somepony.”

Xayah gagged. “That’s disgusting!”

The small changeling shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t say that my abilities were flattering. I’m not much of a fighter anyway, so you probably wont ever even see me do that one.”

The red line on the wall turned a corner and started heading down another tunnel. We had been walking uninterrupted for long enough that I was actually surprised when red bars popped up onto my EFS.

Pyre seemed to notice the bars too, crouching down into a more battle ready stance. “Five hostiles,” She hissed, small flames igniting on the end of her flamers.

“Any way around them?” Heartbeat asked, ducking behind a wall and trying to peer around the corner.

I shook my head. “There might be, but then we risk losing track of the Friendship Trail.”

Xayah flickered out of view for a second, tapping the gem on her stealth cloak. A few seconds later she appeared beside me. “Four ghouls. I couldn’t see the fifth.”

I nodded. Sounded easy enough. I turned to look at all my friends. “Everypony ready?” my question was returned by five confident nods.

Ghouls were easy. Xayah’s uncanny precision with her sniper dropped two of them to the ground before they even realised we were coming. Pyre’s flamers flared around another two, burning away their bodies until nothing but a charred corpse remained. The fifth ghoul, who had been sleeping under a pile of rubble, had only just managed to climb its way out when my baton caved in its head.

I looked around at the small pile of dead ghouls. The fight had almost been disappointing.

My eyes landed on a cluster of mannequins that had been standing in the center of the metro tunnel. I walked over to one of them and kicked it over. “Can somepony explain why there are so many damn mannequins everywhere? They’re freaking me out.”

“Manehattan used to be filled with boutiques. It was considered the fashion empire of Equestria for a while before the war turned it into a giant war factory,” Heartbeat said, prodding at one of the mannequins himself.

“Okay, but why are they all over the place? You know, in metro tunnels or hanging from roofs,” I pushed. “I mean, it just seems silly.”

Heartbeat shrugged. “No idea. Might be raiders simply playing a sick joke.”

I grumbled. Remind me to find those raiders and give them a good bucking upside the head.

“...Wasn’t that the symbol at the apartment building as well?” I heard Xayah ask. I looked over to see her and Brisk standing in front of a large logo of four stars that had been engraved on the wall.

Brisk scratched his head. “I think so. Maybe the company did trains and apartments?”

I walked up to them, looking over the symbol myself. “Well the apartments were connected to the monorail, so it's possible that they did both. That or the apartment was a one off thing.”

“What company that works on railroads makes a single apartment building?” Brisk quipped back, looking down from the logo and to me. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

I tried to remember what I had read in the terminals all the way back when I was in the four star apartment building. “The whole company was a front for zebra sympathisers. I think the apartment was a way to hide their activities.”

Heartbeat gave me a confused look. “I’m no expert on prewar companies save the ministry of peace, but I’ve never heard anything about Four Star being zebra sympathizers.”

I gave him a quick nod. “I was reading through a bunch of the employees terminals when I was in their apartments. The MOM was onto them too.”

Heartbeat gave an intrigued sounding huff. “Well I guess I learn something new every day.”

I spotted a small door off to the right of the tunnel that seemed to lead to a small office area. With my interest now peaked by our conversation, I started moving towards it. “Here, let's see if we can find out a bit about it in there?”

The door, to no ponies surprise, was locked. Knowing my rather embarrassing lack of skill with a bobby pin, I quickly stepped aside and let Brisk get at the door. His first bobby pin snapped, making Brisk curse quietly under his breath as he pulled a second one out with his mouth to stick it in.

“Damn, the door is jammed, I’m going to need a second,” Brisk said around the bobby pin in his mouth. I gave a respectful nod.

As Brisk worked, Pyre pulled me off to the side, clearly wanting to talk to me alone.

“Amber, I think we have a serious problem,” she said, her voice low and almost fearful.

I felt a pang of worry go through me. Pyre was unquestionably the bravest and most experienced out of all of us. If she felt there was reason to be worried about something, then probably was. I remembered her jumpiness this morning. something had been bothering her all day. “What is it?” I asked, matching the volume of my voice with hers.

Pyre glanced behind her, as if expecting something to leap out at her from the gloom. “I think we’re being followed.”

My eyes darted around the tunnel. “By who? In here?” My sights met nothing but the cracked brick walls of the metro.

“Viscera,” Pyre stated bluntly, her gaze returning to me. “I think she’s been following us since we left Tenpony Tower. I keep seeing bars on the edge of my EFS, but every time I look into it, they disappear.”

My brow furrowed, remembering the psychotic raider mare from the Hollow Shades. “How do you know it's her? I mean, there are lots of things in Manehattan…”

“Because I saw her,” Pyre’s words caught me off guard.

“You saw… what? When?” I stammered, no longer being able to be bothered to keep my voice low. “When did you see her?”

Pyre glanced away, once again looking out at the darkness of the metro. “Last night. Mirra had just fallen asleep. I went for a walk outside the Medical Center and I saw her. She wasn’t doing anything, she was just standing out there in the wastes staring at me.”

I felt a heavy lump fall into my stomach. “She was watching us…?” That was bad. From what little I knew about Viscera, she was not a pony to take lightly. “Why didn’t she attack?”

“She’s probably waiting till we are less guarded. We were in the company of the Applejack Rangers at the time. Not to mention Viscera likes to mess around with people before she kills them. She probably wants to scare us first,” If that was her goal, then Viscera was succeeding. “But that isn’t the worst part Amber. I don’t think Viscera was alone.”

There were more ponies tailing us? Just my fucking luck. “Okay… who else?” I heard a small tremor in my own voice.

“Pyre hesitated for a second, as if unsure if she should tell me more. “I think Viscera’s personal raiders are with her.”

“Her personal raiders?” I questioned, not exactly sure what that entailed. “Are those the ones we fought in the Hollow Shades?” I remembered the rather large army of raiders that had followed Viscera into combat. How had we not seen a group of that size following us?

Pyre almost laughed at that. “Ha! No, those were just some rookie raiders. Probably some new recruits that Razor Blade didn’t mind sending out on one of Viscera’s crusades. Viscera’s personal raiders are significantly worse…”

I don’t know when, but at some point my mouth had fallen open. I quickly shut it. “Those were the expendable raiders!” I gasped. Those raiders had been heavily armed and better trained than most raiders I had come across in Manehattan. How much of a threat were these Las Pegasus raiders? “And when you say her raiders are worse… What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean they’re hellhounds,” Pyre grunted bluntly. My whole body went rigged at that. They were Hellhounds! That was insane! Granted, I suppose Viscera was the walking incarnation of insanity and Pyre had told me that she was more Hellhound than pony anyway. “Strongest group of raiders in the wasteland. Can't out fight them, can't out run them, can’t out think them. Not to mention they’re backed by Las Pegasus’ resources. That means they’re equipped with an extensive arsonal of magical energy weapons, more than the usual hellhound anyway. You can't even hide from the damn things. They’ll sniff you out from hundreds of miles away and dig straight through solid walls to get to you.”

I had fought only two hellhounds before. More if you counted the twisted, zombie ones in the glowing sea, but I had mostly just run from those ones. The first hellhound had been a tough fight, but we had managed to kill it with a mix of ridiculous firepower and luck. The second we had stuck a mind control device on and called it a day. I knew how dangerous Hellhounds were, and now they were hunting us.

“H-how many hellhounds are with her?” I said, my voice soaked in my own fear.

Pyre thought about that for a second. “Probably around ten. That's usually what she likes to travel with. Easy amount to conceal, but enough to be near unbeatable in combat.”

I felt my legs go weak beneath me. Ten Hellhound! We couldn’t fight off something like that!

I was about to say as much when I heard a click from the door Brisk was picking at. “Got it!” he said gleefully, gesturing for the two of us to come over.

Glad for a distraction from the horrifying idea of Viscera and her Hellhound raiders, I quickly moved over to him and pushed open the door. I hadn’t even moved inside when a ghoul flung themselves from the doorway and slammed into me, hooves flying. I stumbled backwards, rolling away as the ghoul swiped at me again with its flayed hooves.

Pyre stomped down with her hooves, crushing the ghouls skull in a single mighty slam before it could attempt to cause any more harm.

I pulled myself up, giving Pyre a grateful look, and moved into the office. It was small, only just large enough for two ponies to stand in without it getting awkward. Pyre had to wait outside as the rest of us crammed ourselves inside. Thankfully I was pretty small and Mirra could fly, so we were able to fit most of us in, though it was a tight fit.

A skeleton lay in the corner of the room, the jumpsuit they had once worn now a tattered pile of cloth beside them. Long since dried blood coated the walls and floor of the tiny room and a glowing terminal rest on a small desk.

I pushed myself past my friends and moved towards the terminal. “Alright, let's see what Four Star has to say about themselves,” I needed a distraction from my thoughts of Viscera.

The terminal clicked open, oddly not being locked. I almost felt cheated. The terminal held a collection of audio files. Most of them dated before the war, but I noticed a few that had been recorded afterwards. I clicked on the first one and let it play out for everypony to hear.

“Hello, this is Train Tracks,” a male, static filled voice said from the terminal. He sounded happy enough. That was uncommon in audio recordings. “Say hi Rail.”

“Why are you even recording this?” A female voice said over the recording, presumably belonging to Rail. “Or are you just talking so that you can annoy me more with your incessant blabbering?”

“Oh come on, Rail. Just trying to pass the time. What else are we going to do down here while we wait? I mean we’re spending fifteen hours a day just sitting in here, we need to do something,” The voice of Train Tracks said back, not losing his happy tone. There was a huff, but Rail didn’t speak up again. “Anyway, I thought I’d start a little audio journal here. Just for fun you know. I’ll update it tomorrow. Bye!”

The recording shut out. How very uninformative. I clicked the next one.

“Hello, it’s Train Tracks again. Rail isn’t here at the moment, but she’ll be along soon. Nothing interesting has happened down here yet, hopefully it never has too,” Train Tracks voice started, as we all began listening to the next recording. “But stuff has been happening outside. I just got a nice new place in the four star apartments. All of us did. Rail doesn’t seem very happy about needing to share an apartment with me, said that we spent enough time cramped up in a small space together…”

There was a buzz of static and the voice cut out for a second. I suppose a terminal being over two hundred years old and having gone through a balefire bomb might end up damaging the files some. After a few seconds, Train Tracks voice came back.

“...I guess an apartment where neighbors can come over and have private chats is less suspicious than a company constantly doing secret meetings. Well, that and you can't hide refugees on a monorail,” Train Tracks continued, seemingly rambling on about his new living arrangements. “And sure the rooms are small, but I can’t complain. Cheap housing is always nice and the easy access to the monorail is nice too… my neighbor is kinda weird though, Saddles I think his name is…” The sound off a door creaked open over the recording, followed by the sound of sobbing. “Rail? Are you alright?”

The sobbing continued for a couple of seconds. “Zirria is dead…” There was a few seconds of silence after she spoke. Only the sound of static, broken by the occasional sob emitted from the terminal.

“W-What… how?” I finally heard Train Tracks mutter, his voice shaky.

“The Ministry of Image is saying it was an armed robbery gone wrong… But I don’t think so. Nothing was stolen,” Rail said back, her voice somber and sullen. “Some asshole broke into her shop, shot her and ran off.”

I could hear Train Tracks heavy breathing as he tried to control his temper. “Celestia damn it! I get that we are at war with the zebra’s, but that doesn’t give ponies an excuse to just kill them like that!” He paused to catch his breath. “Zirria didn’t even want to be a part of all this, damn it… she just wanted to be left alone…”

The sound of Rail sighing overlapped Train Tracks voice. “I don’t think it matters if they want to be involved or not… we’re all a part of this now…”

The recording died off, cutting out with a burst of static. I glanced over at Xayah to make sure she was okay, but she seemed unfazed by the news. I suppose racism towards the zebras was fairly common for her. I had seen it plenty of times myself.

I quickly moved onto the next recording. There weren't many left.

“Shitshitshitshit! Fucking bastereds! This can't be happening!” Train Tracks panicked voice flared to life over the recording. “This is Train Tracks to Four Star! Damn it, come in! The doors fucking jammed! Damn it, Somepony pick up!”

“No pony is listening,” I heard Rail scowl from somewhere behind him. “And if they are, they aren’t coming back for us. They probably all holed themselves up in one of the bunkers.”

I heard a loud thud as Train Tracks slammed his hooves on the desk. “Shit! This can’t be happening! I don’t want to die! I can’t fucking do this!”

“Please get to the safety of your designated Stable!” A tinny and muffled voice rang out. I had heard this voice before, in the final recording from Silver Ace’s terminal. “This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill!”

Train Tracks breathing became more panicked. “Celestia above!”

I heard Rail grab Train Tracks by the shoulders and give him a shake. “Get a hold of yourself. These metro tunnels were built by Four Star. We were expecting the attack. We might be okay…”

There was a boom. Even from hundreds of miles away, the sound was all consuming. Then there was another, and another. Screams began filtering through the recording. Long, howling screams. I could hear the sound of the walls shaking. The fast ticking of a geiger counter filled the small room. I had to quickly check to make sure it was the recording and not my pipbuck.

“Fuck! Shit! Damn! Fuck!” Train Tracks voice echoed over the din. “Celestia damn them! Please! Let me out!”

The recording ended. I just stared at the terminal for a second. That recording had been awful. My whole body was shaking just from listening to it. I could see Mirra trying to hide her face behind her translucent wings. It wasn’t working.

I didn’t want to hear the rest. We had found a corpse and a ghoul inside the room, I knew they would never get out. There were no happy endings to be found here.

I turned away to face the door, struggling a little as I tried to move past my friends in the close quarters. “Come on, let's keep following the friendship trail.

Brisk, Mirra and Heartbeat quickly nodded, filing out of the room to join Pyre outside. As I began to move away, I spotted Xayah standing before the terminal, her eyes still transfixed on the screen. I turned back to her.

“Xayah? You coming?”

Xayah didn’t look at me, instead keeping her focus on the audio logs. “Somepony needs to hear this through…” She said, her voice low. “They died here, and no pony knew. Somepony should remember...”

I glanced from The broken body of the ghoul to the symbol of four stars on the wall. “These were bad ponies, Xayah. I know they didn’t sound it on the recording, but they played a hoof in the zebras smuggling balefire bombs into the city.”

“They helped protect my people!” Xayah snapped, finally looking up from the terminal and to me. I was taken aback, it was unlike Xayah to lose her cool. It happened, but rarely. And I had never heard her refer to other zebras as her people before. Looking almost ashamed, Xayah looked back down at the terminal. “These were ponies that cared not if one bears stripes… I’m tired of ponies hating me for those…”

I took a nervous step forward. “I don’t hate you for those. In fact, I wouldn’t have you without them,” I started, unsure where this sudden burst of emotion from Xayah had come from.

Xayah cast me a sideways glance. “Wouldn’t you? I saw you when you first saved me from the cage all those moons ago. You feared me just as all ponies do. Perhaps you were better than most, but still… I’m tired of the stares when I am around other ponies. In Tenpony tower, half of the stores I tried to go too would not let me barter with them.”

I took yet another step towards her. My mind filled with guilty thoughts. She was right. When we had first met, I had considered leaving her to the mercy of raiders. All I had ever known of zebras were that they were the enemy of Equestria. But that wasn’t Xayah. Xayah was just as much one of the zebras that destroyed Manehattan as I was one of the ponies that mercilessly slaughtered zebras in the war.

I took a deep breath and moved back into the small room with Xayah. “I admit that I felt that way when we first met. In the stable all I knew of zebras was to hate them. Yes, I almost left you there, but I didn’t. I chose to save you. To get to know you. I’m glad I did. You’re one of the most amazing people I have ever met.”

Xayah’s hoof trembled as it hovered over the next audio log. She released a heavy sigh. “I wish all ponies shared such sentiments.”

I reached forwards and pushed the next audio log for her. “Come on. Let's listen to these together,” I said, standing next to her. “Let's remember them.”

The audio recording started out slow. Just long pained breaths. Finally, the voice of Train Tracks started up. His voice was ragged, as if his throat was filled with a layer of sand. “I figure no pony is going to get this message, but I’m sending it out just in case there is any pony left out there. We’re trapped in this room. We’re both sick and I don’t know how long we will last. Radiation is seeping in. Not a lot, it shouldn’t be lethal to us so long as we don't fall asleep. We don’t have any food. Probably will only last another day or so…” Train Tracks went into a coughing fit. It lasted for minutes. “Fuck… I’m not even talking to anypony… they’re all dead… Fuck me…”

The recording ended. Damn it, I didn’t want to hear this. But Xayah was right. Somepony had to remember them. They deserved that much. I reached forwards and pushed the next one.

“Rail is dead…” Train Tracks voice said over the recording. His voice was low and somber. “It… it was a slow death… she deserved better. She… She told me to…” I heard him break down into tears, wet, raspy cough breaking up the whimpering sobs. “She told me to eat her… she… she said I-I m-might be a-able to make it out if I got some food… I… Celestia damn me… I did it…”

I could feel my stomach clench up at the idea. Being locked in a room and forced to eat the corpse of your friend just to survive. It was horrible.

Xayah’s hoof was trembling more than ever. She took a heavy breath and glanced at the curled up skeleton in the corner of the small room. It was all too horrible. I put a hoof around her and pulled her close.

“I… fuck… I’ll probably make it a few more days thanks to her… please… if any pony hears this… I just want to get out… I want to see the sun again… I don’t want to die in here…”

Once again, the recording ended with a burst of static. I glanced down at the terminal. There was only one recording left. To my surprise it was dated almost a hundred years after the other ones. With a shaking hoof, I reached forwards and activated it.

“I don’t know how long it's been. Time passes slowly in here, but I know it's been more than a year now,” Train Tracks voice said. His voice was low and gravely, unquestionably a ghoul. “I don’t know what happened, but that radiation did something to me… I’m… I’m different now… I can't die… I don’t sleep, I don’t need food… I’m still hungry, but I don’t need food… guess I didn’t need to eat whoever that mare was… I don’t even remember her name any more…”

My whole body felt heavy. I had seen horrors in the wasteland. Witnessed fates far worse than any death. But this was beyond anything I could have imagined. To be stuck in the same room for eternity, to be forced to eat your best friend to survive, only to find out you didn’t need to, to forget her name… it was horrible…

“I don’t know why I’m recording this,” Train Track continued. “I think I used to do this all the time, back before all this… I guess… I guess I just wanted somepony to know… To know what happened here. Somepony needs to find this place eventually, right…” He sighed. It was a painful sound. “I’ll probably still be here when you find this… and when you do… whoever you are… I want you to kill me… I don’t want to be alive anymore… I just can’t bring myself to do it… I… Uh… I don’t know what my name is, but… What am I doing… no pony is going to find this… fuck…”

The final recording ended. Xayah and I stared at the terminal. I almost expected there to be more. There wasn’t. What else was there for Train Tracks to say.

With a sigh, I moved over to Rail's skeleton and gingerly hauled her onto my back. The broken bones scratched at my back.

“Amber, what are you doing?” Xayah asked, looking over at me as I tried to balance myself with the weight of the skeleton on my back.

“I’m going to bury them,” I said flatly. “Not down here… they deserve better than that. I’m going to bury them outside.”

Xayah nodded and moved to lift the corpse of Train Tracks ghoul onto her own back. I was about to follow her out when I spotted a memory orb lying next to where Rail's skeleton had lain. I picked it up in my hooves and stuffed it into my saddlebags to watch later. We had spent enough time here already. It was time to get moving.

“Do I even want to ask?” Pyre asked, looking Xayah and I over as we re-approached the group with the two corpses slung over our backs. I quickly explained what we were doing to her. Pyre let out a long sigh. “You want to carry two corpses all the way through the metro?” When our faces made it clear that we did, Pyre gave a loud groan. “Alright, let's strap them to my back, I’ll be able to carry them faster than you two.”

I gave her a grateful look and moved to strap them to her back. Mirra quickly fluttered off of Pyre’s back and helped us tie down the two bodies.

“You guys might want to hurry up!” I heard Brisk shout from down the tunnel. “I’m picking up red bars on my EFS.”

I glanced down at my pipbuck. Sure enough it was swarming with red bars. So many in fact that I couldn’t tell where one bar ended and the other started. We had had so few encounters down here so far that I had forgotten that the metro was widely considered one of the most dangerous places in Manehattan.

“Ghouls,” I heard Heartbeat growl as the sound of wailing screams started echoing up the metro tunnels towards us.

I saw the first ghoul round the corner and start crawling towards us. I froze. All the muscles in my body locked up and I suddenly found it hard to breath.

This was like no ghoul I had ever seen. It looked more akin to something I might have found below the Hollow Shades than here in Manehattan. It was vaguely pony with peeled, rotting, bloated flesh in place of fur. Multiple limbs stuck out of it from odd angles, twisting hooves stretching from its sides, misshapen and lopsided wings sprouted from its back and gnarled unicorn horns protruded from its head. It's tongue had grown far longer than it should have, twisting from its mouth and dragging along the ground. The tongue had flayed and warped, looking more like a writhing mass of tentacles than a pony tongue.

Pyre’s flamers burst to life incinerating the monstrosity before it could get any closer. The second it fell, I found myself suddenly able to move again, as if looking at it had frozen me in place. A terrible stench started wafting from the charred body of the strange ghoul, filling the area and swirling into my nostrils. I gagged. I vomited. My body went weak and my head felt dizzy from the foul stench alone. I could tell my friends were having similar reactions.

“W-What the fuck was that!” I gasped, reeling back. “W-wha.. I… what the fuck!”

“Shit, what are they doing all the way out here?” I heard Heartbeat gasp, stumbling away from the tunnel where we could still hear the howls of more of those approaching… things.

Brisk cast him a glance. “You’ve seen things like that before?”

Heartbeat nodded. “I encountered something similar in a hospital out in Old Olneigh. They’re some sort of taint creature that causes a sort of paralysis by looking at them. That one though seems different somehow…”

Pyre gave a small snort. “Taint. Figures. Nothing else could create something so… well that…”

I glanced around at my companions. “So, do we fight them?”

Heartbeat gave me a look of horror. “Are you kidding? You can't fight that many and not look at them… no, we run. We run really damn fast.”

Then there was a roar. A loud billowing roar that echoed up from the depth of the tunnel. The wall of the metro shook at the sound and chunks of cement rained down around us as something huge charged down one of the tunnels outside our line of sight. A couple of red bars winked out on my EFS.

I gulped. “Yeah… let's run!”

Thankfully, the Friendship Trail seemed to lead us away from the terrifying abominations and whatever had caused that huge roar. Unfortunately, there seemed to be more of those vile horrors down this way too.

I dropped my head to look at the ground as I saw one of the horrifying creatures start to crawl out from behind one of the corners. Once again, Pyre’s flamers roared to life and burned it to a crisp. This things were terrifying and defiantly dangerous in large groups, but they thankfully seemed to be incredibly dumb and easy to kill if you could get a hit on them.

Behind us, I could still hear the pained wails as the strange horrors gave chase. They didn’t seem overly fast, limping and scrambling over the rough terrain with their twisted and broken limbs, but they gave us good incentive not to slow down.

As we rushed forwards, my pipbuck began clicking furiously at me, warning me that we had entered a large area of radiation. I recalled what Pyre had said. There were areas in the metro where radiation had pooled. I was getting reminded of why the metro was considered to be so dangerous.

“Radiation! Go, go!” Brisk shouted, stating what I had already figured out and demanding what I was only seconds away from ordering myself. We all quickened our pace.

The clicking of my geiger counter didn’t go away, it just kept clicking faster and faster as we charged down the long tunnel. How far down this tunnel did the pooling radiation go? I dared myself to check my pipbuck rad meter. I was suffering from severe radiation poisoning. We would all need a radaway after this.

Behind me, I could hear the sound of squishy hooves scuttling over the broken, debris covered floor of the tunnel behind us. I could smell the stench of the horrors as they surged into the tunnel behind us.

I made a mistake. I looked behind me. I froze.

Hundreds of horrifying, twisted ghoul like creatures were crawling towards us, their long tentacle tongues writhed and squirmed as if reaching for me. I felt Xayah pulling me away, trying to get me out of the radioactive area and away from those awful things.

I tried to move and help her get me away from them, but I couldn’t. I was frozen, immobilized.

The creatures drew closer, their tentacles finally coming within range. I felt the slimy, snake-like appendages slithering around me and dragging me forwards. I wanted to scream, but again, I found myself unable.

Xayah’s sniper fired towards them. The shot missed, her aim dramatically lessened by her inability to look at them without becoming immobilized herself.

Tentacle reached out and wrapped around her as well. Xayah twisted, trying to break free. Her gaze landed on one of the horrors that was scrambling towards her. Like me, she froze.

The tentacles pulling me towards the monstrosities twisted me to face the ground, temporarily moving my sight from the awful creatures and onto the roof. My paralysis broke. I screamed.

It wasn’t a dignifying scream. I sounded like a little filly, fearing the dark and crying for her mother. I suppose… I suppose when you look past everything I had been through, that actually was what I was.

I felt tentacles beginning to slither up my hind legs. The tips of the tentacles opened up, oozing a thick white fluid as if they were a cockroach giving birth. I suddenly had the terrible realization that they weren’t just trying to eat me, they were trying to… oh goddesses!

I felt one of the slimy tendrils push up against my pelvis. I thrashed, screaming. I couldn’t do this! This was too much!

Brisk leapt over me, his pistol firing off a shot into the monster that held me before falling frozen to the ground himself. I felt the tentacles recoil as the bullet pierced the creatures brain and dropped it to the ground, dead.

Now free, and with a slightly more clear mind, I raised my combat shotgun in my magic and blasted at the creature that held Xayah. The monster was pulped, vile yellow fluid erupted from the tattered stump where its head used to be.

Xayah scampered back, her paralysis finally over.

I kept my gaze down, knowing hundreds more were still scuttling down the tunnel towards us. I wrapped Brisk in a field of magic and pulled him away, allowing him to come back to his senses.

A wall of flame spewed over us as Pyre rushed to our aid. Her head was low, doing her best to take out the creatures without looking at them. Thankfully for her, unlike the rest of us who had to aim with our weapons to shoot at something, all Pyre had to do was face their general direction and let her flamers do the rest.

“Go!” The power armoured raider shouted, trying to be heard over the pained wails and bursts of her flamers. “Get out of the radiation, I’ll be fine.”

I saw a pale blue glow start pulsing from around the corner that the strange monsters had been coming from. A blood curdling roar reached my ears, making my ears ring in pain. Whatever other terrifying creature was in these tunnels with us, was still there.

I turned and started running down the hall, Brisk and Xayah close behind me. Heartbeat and Mirra had already moved ahead, darting around the far corner and out of sight.

I saw one of the twisted horrors emerge from a side tunnel. Without looking, I raised my combat shotgun and fired. From the sound of bursting flesh and blood splattering against the wall, I knew I hit it.

We rounded the corner. Up ahead, I saw both Heartbeat and Mirra standing frozen, their eyes locked on something down a side hall I couldn’t see. I rushed forwards and jumped in front of them, making sure not to look the direction they were.

With their view broken from what I had surmised to be another of the tortured looking creatures, Mirra and Heartbeat staggered back, freed from their frozen state.

I pointed down the tunnel that the red line of the Friendship Trail went down. “Come on! This way!”

Before we could start moving down the tunnel, I felt whatever creature Mirra and Heartbeat had been looking at start wrapping its fleshy tendrils around me from behind. Panicking, I levitated my combat shotgun up and fired blindly behind me. There was a horrific ripping noise, accompanied by a manic wail, and the tendrils fell away.

Pyre burst around the corner frantically, her flamers spewing jets of flames at a few of the strange horrors that still chased after her. “Run! Go go go!” She screamed, pushing past us and down the tunnel I had indicated. There was a fear in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

Not needing to be told twice, I started rushing after her, the rest of my friends following close behind. “Pyre? What is going on?” I yelled, putting all of my effort into running.

“That thing we heard roaring!” Pyre started, leaping over a collapsed area of ruble in the middle of the tunnel. “It’s a fucking Ursa minor!”

I glanced around at my friends, not knowing what that was. Brisk looked just as confused. Xayah on the other hoof, was wide eyed and trembling. “Star spawn…” her voice trembled with fear.

Another monstrous roar bellowed up at us from the darkness. I saw a few more red bars on my EFS go out. I could feel the metro tunnels shaking as the unseen star spawn thundered down the tunnels.

Heartbeat came to a stop and gestured down a side tunnel to our right. Down the tunnel sat a large metal door with the symbol of four stars on it. “Come on, let's hide in there!” He shouted, moving down the side tunnel. “We need to get out of this tunnel.”

“But we’ll lose the Friendship Trail!” I said, hesitating to follow.

“We can find it again later, right now we need to not die!” Heartbeat shot back, continuing to move towards the large metal door.

The booming sound of the Star Spawn reverberated around the tunnel as it grew closer. I could feel my whole body vibrating as it unleashed another horrific roar.

Pyre rushed past me, ushering Mirra along. “This is a Star Spawn, Amber. You don’t fight a fucking Star Spawn.”

“Amber! Move!” Xayah shouted, pulling up behind me and pushing me towards the large metal door. Xayah’s words finally convinced me. I bolted towards what I had begun to realize was the Four Star bunker Train Tracks and Rail had mentioned. It was made to survive a balefire bomb, surely it would keep us safe from whatever a Star Spawn was.

We all threw ourselves into the bunker. Thankfully, the bunker door seemed to be unlocked.

Once we had all piled into the bunker, Brisk tapped his hoof on the large door. It wasn’t even close to as secure as a Stable door, but it was still one of the most heavy duty doors I had seen in the wasteland. “Shouldn’t this thing have been locked?” Brisk questioned.

“Maybe nopony ever got inside,” I suggested, glancing out of the crack in the door to the dark tunnel we had just left. I saw the immense form of some strange beast dart past the entrance with alarming speed. Whatever that Star Spawn was, it was huge.

I took a deep breath, suddenly very thankful that we had decided to hide from that monster.

Heartbeat tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. “If this is a bunker, chances are that there are medical supplies somewhere in here. Assuming this place hasn't been looted already. We should probably stock up if we can. And we are all in need of some radaway.”

I gave him a nod and turned to face the bunker beyond. It split off into three separate hallways, each sealed by a sliding metal door. “I don’t know how big this bunker is. We'll be able to cover more ground if we split up,” I looked around at all of my friends. "We’ll go in groups of two. Make sure each group has access to an EFS so that we can track each other down once we find medical supplies.”

Brisk glanced at his pipbuck. “Uh… Amber? That might be an issue…”

Raising an eyebrow I glanced down at my own pipbuck. Nothing. It showed nothing. Not a single green or red bar was on my EFS. I bit my lower lip nervously. This was just perfect… I glanced at my radio frequencies next. Again nothing. All the stations had been replaced with a low frequency that my ears couldn’t seem to pick up.

I groaned. “Alright, how about we meet back here in one hour. That should be more than long enough to search the whole area and the Pipbuck clock at least still works.”

They all gave quick nods of agreement. Pyre and Mirra began moving down the hallway to the left. Heartbeat and Brisk to the right. I turned to Xayah, gesturing for her to follow me down the central passage.

The bunker was uncomfortably silent. It wasn’t uncommon for the wasteland to be quiet, but true silence was uncommon. The only sounds we could hear were the slow rhythmic clopping of our hooves as Xayah and I moved down the dark corridor. There were no ponies in sight, not even bodies. Clearly no pony had managed to make it into the bunker before the bombs went off.

“So what exactly is a star spawn?” I asked, deciding I didn’t want to walk in silence anymore. We passed a couple of long abandoned rooms. They had been ransacked. The small, grey beds and few pieces of furniture lay on their sides, torn and ripped apart.

Xayah cast me a nervous glance. “Zebras believe they are monsters sent down from the stars to wreak havoc upon pony and zebra kind,” She said slowly, glancing behind her as if expecting to see the Star Spawn looming behind us. “They are greatly feared among zebras, as they should be.”

This was not the first time I had heard about the Zebras beliefs in things beyond the stars, but as we walked, I began to realize how little I actually knew about the whole thing. “The Stars…” I started, not quite sure how to approach the topic. “...What exactly do the zebras believe are out there?”

Xayah cast me another nervous look. I could tell talking about the stars was not something she was particularly fond of doing. “Zebras believe that there are many things beyond the stars. Most so vast our mortal minds would be unable to comprehend. Evil things. Things that enjoy meddling in our lives. Giving us the tools to craft our own destruction.”

I could feel a tremor run through me at that. I couldn’t say I believe in such things, but the universe was big. Far bigger than I had ever imagined in my small, claustrophobic Stable. Who knew what else was out there. If evil could exist in Equestria, why not beyond the stars?

“And what do you believe?” I finally decided to ask as we passed yet another ruined room that looked like it was supposed to be some sort of kitchen. Clearly we were not the first ponies to be here.

Xayah thought about that for a second. “I am unsure of what is beyond the stars. I do not believe that our beliefs are fully true, but I would have to be a fool to think they are unfounded. Something lies past the stars and moon, and it is not friendly. Just look at Nightmare Moon.”

That pulled me up short. “Wh-what is that supposed to mean?” I scowled. “Princess Luna overcame Nightmare Moon. She became a better pony!”

“Indeed,” Xayah nodded in agreeance. “But one must wonder how Luna became Nightmare Moon to begin with. Many believe she was driven by jealousy or even greed. That it was all some sort of metal break… but neither of those things come with physical transformations.”

I decided to stop the conversation there. The idea that Equestria’s princess had been controlled by some strange star god was terrifying beyond what I wanted to think about.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The silence of the tunnel was interrupted. I came to a halt, my ears perking up as I tried to pinpoint the sound.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Xayah came to a stop as well, her ears picking up the strange noise too. She crouched down, her hooves silently pulling out her sniper.

She glanced at me. “What do you suppose that is?” she whispered.

I stilled for a second, listening to the sound. In the silence it wasn’t hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. I gestured for Xayah to follow me as I moved up to an open doorway down the hallway and glanced inside.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The good news was that we had found the medical bay. The bad news was that it was occupied.

The first thing I noticed were the chains. They hung from the roof and walls, ending in jagged and rusted meat hooks. From them hung tattered bits of rotting flesh, some looking blackened enough to be days or even months old while others still dripped fresh with blood. Even whole pony and zebra corpses hung from the hooks, strung up like lights on hearth's warming eve. The corpses looked as if they had once belonged to ghouls, but they had twisted and mutated, crooked wings, horns and extra limbs protruding from their bodies in places they really shouldn’t.

Gulping, I let my eyes fall to the floor, hoping to look away from the ghastly sight. The horrors of the room had other ideas.

The floor was soaked in a thick layer of blood and pony innereds. The discarded remains of the tentacled horrors in the metro tunnels lay scattered across the floor, cut open with surgical precision, their insides spewing out to join the viscera that coated the floor.

Multiple radios lay around the room. Each one of them was on, but seemed to be broadcasting nothing.

A blue alicorn stood in the center of the room, leaning over the writhing body of a pegasus ghoul that she had apparently strapped to the table. The ghoul looked past the point of feral, its ragged body covered in gashes and pus filled blisters. It squirmed desperately as the alicorn lowered a pair of scalpels towards its stomach and continued slowly slicing it open.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

I had to put a hoof over my mouth to keep from vomiting again. Beside me, I could see Xayah looking more pale than usual.

Trying my best not to scream, I raised my combat shotgun. Beside me, Xayah levelled her silenced sniper, aiming the weapon towards the alicorn. The alicorn's guard was down and she was facing away from us, we had a chance to take her out quickly before she spotted us.

I readied myself to fire.

The alicorn leaned back a little, admiring her handiwork on the thrashing ghoul. The ghoul had been pulled open completely, the flesh where its stomach had been pulled aside in a gruesome fashion.

“Ah, you are perfect!” The alicorn said, a hint of gleeful pride in her voice. Her words made me pause. They weren’t in my head like when most alicorns talked, she was just talking… normally.

Well… normal as an alicorn talking to a tied down captive while they slice them open can be I suppose.

The alicorn's horn flared and a small bucket full of some sloshing liquid levated out of the corner of the room to hover above the thrashing ghoul. “Hold still now, you are going to be beautiful!” The alicorn squeed, doing a happy little dance on the spot.

The bucket tipped. Rainbow fluid splashed out, filling the hole the alicorn had cut open.

The alicorn was filling the ghoul up with I.M.P!? Or Taint, as Heartbeat had called it. That was insane? Or was it... Does taint even affect alicorns?

The ghoul began to squirm more, thrashing violently as its insides filled with the vile fluids. A thick sizzling steam rose from where the taint touched the creatures rotting skin and the overpowering stench of rot filled the air.

The ghouls body began to morph, twisting and bloating into something horrible. Its tongue lolled from its mouth, warping and splitting into a mass of squirming tentacle. I felt my whole body lock up just by looking at the thing. Not freeze completely, but enough that I could feel my breathing slow.

This alicorn was doing more than just torture and experiment on ghouls. She was creating those monsters!

The alicorn sighed and stomped her hoof on the ground. “NO! Nonono! That's still not right at all!” The blue aura around the alicorns horn enveloped the nightmare on her table. There was the chilling sound of crunching bones, then a sickening pop as the creature's body collapsed in on itself, shriveling up until it was only the size of my hoof. The alicorn tossed the shriveled up body aside, letting it slump to the floor in a bloody mess with the rest of the corpses. “You are all lucky there we lots of you down here! I’ll perfect it soon! I know I will! I just need to try a few more experiments! I’ll get it!”

I had seen enough. I motioned for Xayah to take the shot. The zebra gave a grim nod and leveled the sniper at the crazed alicorns head. The side of the metal sniper tapped against the wall, a small ring chiming out in the eerie silence of the bunker.

The alicorn froze. Her eyes darted from the shriveled corpse on the ground to us by the door. Her smile widened.

In the blink of an eye, the alicorn flickered out of view. Xayah’s sniper fired, her bullet whizzing through the air and striking the wall the alicorn had stood in front of only seconds before.

I pushed myself away from the doorframe, my combat shotgun ready for when the alicorn would teleport back. I made a mistake. I assumed it had teleported.

A hoof swung out of nowhere and slammed into my head. I stumbled back, my head reeling from the impact.

Xayah spun around, trying to pinpoint where the strike had come from. I saw a shimmer of air as the invisible alicorn moved up behind her. I called out a warning, but I was too late. The alicorn knocked the sniper from Xayah’s grasp, the weapon flying away and skidding across the floor.

Xayah managed to dodge the next strike, Celestia only knows how while she was unable to see her attacker.

The alicorn flickered back into view, her horn glowing as she blasted a beam of blue light at Xayah. The laser stuck her square in the breast, knocking her back to the ground breathless.

I staggered forwards, trying to bring my combat shotgun to bear. The alicorn scoffed, her telekinesis easily ripping the shotgun from me, her magic vastly superior to my own.

“Did you really think you could sneak up on me?” The alicorn soothed, lowering her head to look me in the eye.

I faltered at that. “Me? Don’t you alicorns refer to yourselves as us and we or some shit?”

The blue alicorn seemed amused by that. Her amused expression slipped away when my hoof flew out and slapped her across the face. She stumbled back, a dumbfounded look of shock across her face that I would dare slap her. She snarled.

A blast of energy from her horn slammed into me, toppling me over and sending me crashing to the wall. My head thumped against the metal surface, making me see stars.

I rolled back to my hooves, my vision blurry and fractured. I sagged forward on my right forehoof. It felt sprained, though thankfully not broken.

The alicorn loomed over me, a scowl etched across her features. Xayah's unconscious body levitated beside her, the alicorns magic tight around her throat.

I stumbled forwards to swing at the monster again, only for a beam of light from the alicorns horn to blast me again. I stumbled backwards, reaching a hoof to my chest where the beam of light had struck me. Thankfully, it seemed my ballistic weave enhanced barding was warding off most of the damage.

Then I felt the alicorn's magic wrap around my heart. This wasn’t the first time I had felt the alicorns try this trick on me, but this time I was too weak to stop them.

A shooting pain shot through my body as my heart came to a very sudden stop. My already splintered vision began to swarm with black and the silence of the bunker was filled with a muffled ringing that flooded into my ears.

I dropped to the ground, my body limp. Then the blackness overtook me and I drifted into nothingness.

I awoke strapped face down to a table. Panic flared through me and I jerked against my bindings as I tried to free myself. The thick straps that held me down refused to budge.

I let my eyes dart around the room. I was still in the medical bay, surrounded by the gore and corpses dangling from meat hooks. I could see the shrivelled up remains of the ghoul pony the alicorn had been experimenting on lying only a few feet away.

Across the room I spotted a desk. The surface was covered in an assortment of different medial tools, syringes, scalpels. I could feel more fear sinking in as I spotted things such as bone saws and drills amongst the tools.

The alicorn was still in the room, slowly filling a syringe full of what I could only assume was taint. She glanced over at me, her blood soaked face twisting into an awful grin.

“Ah, you’re awake! Perfect,” The alicorn lifted a scalpel up off the desk and began floating it over to me. I began trying to thrash against my binding harder, but to no effect. “You should be honored. I think I’ve finally cracked the equation. You are going to be my first new alicorn!” the alicorn paused and thought about something for a second. “Well, I probably got it right this time. I don’t have any proof yet.”

I gawked at her, my surprise making me temporarily forget about trying to escape my bindings. She was trying to create her own alicorns! That was… impossible!

I recalled the tentacled horrors of the metro. They had been covered in wings and horns. Some of them had looked as if they had been sewn on while others had seemed to have grown them on their own.

Maybe creating alicorns wasn’t impossible, but still. This was insane.

“Where is Xayah!?” I finally managed to get out through my fear. “What did you do to her!”

The alicorn almost looked offended. The scalpel levitated away from me a little as the alicorn put a hoof to her breast in mock offence. “Why on earth would I do something to her? Like you, she will become one of my children. You two will be the first. The first of many!”

I tried to reach out and grapple the scalpel away from the alicorn with my magic, only to find that I couldn’t. I glanced down at my pipbuck. It was marred with scratches. Clearly the alicorn had tried to remove it to no avail. It was flashing warnings of severe rad poisoning. I could feel my body go even weaker just by looking at it.

I was in no state to use magic.

“Oh yes little pony, I will create my own unity!” The alicorn continued, smiling gleefully at her own words. “But unlike the goddess, my unity will be all consuming. Ponies, zebras, even dragons will become a part of the collective! As soon as I crack the equation that is.”

The scalpel began descending towards me again. I tried to pull myself away, but I was strapped down too tightly. “But… can’t the goddess already make alicorns?” I questioned, hoping there was some way for me to stall. I had to keep her talking until my friends could find me. Hopefully I had been unconscious long enough that they had realised something was up. My question however, didn’t seem to make the descent of the scalpel slow any.

“Ha!” The alicorn laughed, her face showing clear signs of enjoying the conversation. I wondered how long it had been since this alicorn had talked to somepony. “The goddess has no power over me here. That radio frequency blocks her influence.” she gestured to the radios that scattered the medical bay.

I started putting this together in my mind. I had noticed a strange frequency when we had first entered the bunker. A frequency I couldn’t hear, but that if I had to make a guess, was also somehow blocking our EFS’ from working. Furthermore, the hellhound mind control devices Star Breeze had been working on, at least with the older models, had had a radio broadcaster built into it. Perhaps they were the same frequency? One that could meddle with and confuse brain waves somehow?

My thoughts exploded in my head as I felt the sharp scalpel press against my back just above my foreleg. The blade burned as it sliced through my skin, no doubt the blade was laced with some corrosive substance. I could feel the scalpel digging deep, the tip scratching against bone.

I glanced back, wincing as I felt the blade withdraw from the deep laceration. Blood was spilling from my back and a large gash had opened up.

I could see the alicorn smirking above me as she levateded up the corpse of a green pegasus ghoul. Her horn flared and with a crack, the corpse's wings snapped off, the body falling back to the blood soaked floor.

The wing lowered, the jagged chunk of bone slipping into the laceration on my side. I screamed, feeling the sharp edge slicing into my muscles. I tried to yank myself free, only to find the alicorns magic envelope me as well and keep me still.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the alicorn raise her taint filled syringe up. I felt a spiking pain as the needle penetrate above the newly implanted wing. The dose was small, not nearly enough to be lethal, but it was enough for the alicorns purposes. I could feel my insides begin to squirm, the muscle around the ghouls' wing beginning to writhe and wrap around the bone as if the wing had always been there. I felt my skin around the wound begin to close up, welding the new appendage permanently to my side.

I felt sick and wrong, and not just because I could feel a small dose of taint flowing through my veins. This was a violation of who I was.

I dared myself to look at the wing. It was crooked, having not been placed perfectly flush with my back. The tattered green feathers contrasted starkly with my pink hide, making the twisted limb look visibly wrong.

My gut clenched. I screamed. My stomach was doing violent somersaults and at some point I had vomited, covering the blood stained mattress I lay on in my own filth.

The blue alicorn smirked, slowly walking around to the other side of me. More fear gripped me as I felt the scalpel start to once again dig into my flesh as the alicorn made room for a second wing. As soon as the new hole was large enough for the alicorn's liking, she levitated over the next wing and painfully slid it into its spot.

I continued screaming in protest, my vision beginning to grow fuzzy from the pain and blood loss. I could feel the needle once again inside me pumping me full of a small dose of taint, making my insides twist and convulse.

Something was gnawing away at me from the inside as if my intestines were filled with hungry maggots. I could feel the muscle and flesh growing back in and around the newly placed wing, locking it into place.

“There we go, was that so hard?” I heard the alicorn chuckle above me. Her voice sounded distant and muffled. The blood loss and contamination of taint in my veins was quickly sending me back towards unconsciousness. Though this time, I feared I wouldn’t wake up from it.

I felt the alicorn's magic wrap around the straps holding me down. There was a click, and suddenly I was able to move my limbs again.

Using what little strength I had left, I pushed myself forwards, trying to reach for and strangle the alicorn. I was too weak. I fell, landing face first in the blood soaked floor with a groan.

Once again, I felt the alicorn's magic take hold of me and raise me into the air, strapping me back to the table, this time face up.

I forced myself to open my eyes, taking in the scalpel that hovered over my stomach. My eyes went wide. Beside the scalpel floated a small bucket of sloshing rainbow fluid. I wasn’t just becoming an alicorn! I was becoming one of those… things!

The scalpel lowered. The tip of the blade began to slice into my belly.

“Maybe if you let me check your wounds I might be able to heal them,” it was Heartbeats voice. His words were accompanied by a collection of hoofsteps coming towards us from down the hall. Among them I could hear Brisk's distinct limp and the heavy thud of Pyre’s power armour.

“I don’t want you to fix them,” I heard Pyre scowl back. “They’re a part of me. They remind me not to make the same fuck ups again.”

I felt myself going limp with relief. They were coming. They would save me!

Now sprawled on my back, I was able to get a clear view of the alicorns blood soaked face. She was grinning. Why was she… oh goddesses!

The alicorn glanced down at me, her gleeful expression still sprawled across her face. Her head lowered so her mouth was only an inch or two from my ear. “I see you brought more friends to join my own personal unity,” She whispered, so quiet that only I could hear her.

Before I could scream a warning, the alicorn slipped a rope gag into my mouth with her magic, silencing me completely. She took a step back raising a hoof to her lips as if to tell me to be quiet. Then, she flickered out of view with her freaky invisibility spell.

I lay there helplessly, listening to the sound of my friends hoofsteps getting closer. I could feel my gut twisting, but I couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or my rapidly mutating insides caused by the taint.

Heartbeat turned into the room first. He was looking behind him as he talked to Pyre, not looking at the room he was entering.

I managed to make a muffled scream like noise through my gag. Heartbeats head picked up, looking at me from across the bloodsoaked room. His eyes went wide as he took in my state.

The alicorn was beside him before he could get his bearings. The monster's horn flared, blasting a beam of energy into Heartbeat and sending him skidding across the room. The monster took a step back, swiftly getting out of the way of Pyre’s attack as the power armoured raider charged into the room.

Heartbeat landed next to me, his lab grey hide and lab coat now soaked in blood. He looked up at me with pained eyes, his expression distant as he tried to shake off the dizziness of getting thrown to the ground so hard.

Blam.

I heard Brisk’s pistol fire, but the alicorn’s shield was already up. The shot ricocheted off the magic shield, embedding itself in the wall beside me.

Pyre’s flamers burst to life, smothering the alicorn's shield in flame. The fire washed over the alicorn, her shield making it look like the room held a giant ball of fire in the center. The flame subsided, and the alicorn stepped out. Completely unharmed due to her powerful shield.

Once more, the alicorn flickered out of view. Both Brisk and Pyre reeled back, trying to spot the invisible intruder.

Horror shot through me as I saw the splashes of invisible hooves in the blood soaked floor. She was heading towards Heartbeat who still lay dazed next to me.

I bit at the cloth gag in my mouth, trying to call out a warning to him. I felt the gag loosen a little. Not completely, but enough to choke out a few words. “Heartbeat! Behind…” The rest of my sentence was muffled by the gag, but I got the point across.

Heartbeats eyes flickered behind him. He couldn’t see the approaching alicorn, but he didn’t need to. If she was invisible, it meant she didn’t have her shield up.

Heartbeats pink aura of magic wrapped around the scalpel that lay next to me where the alicorn had left it and swung it in a frantic slash behind him. Blood spurted out across the room as the sharp blade dug deep into the invisible alicorns throat.

The alicorn flashed back into sight, her forehooves clutching at the large gash in her neck. Blood spilled down her front, making her dark blue coat a sickening black. She stumbled backwards, her eyes wide as she tried to mend her throat with a healing spell before she drowned in her own blood.

Pyre never gave her that opportunity. Her flamers roared to life, dousing the alicorn in fire. The alicorns magic imploded, the pain of being burned alive breaking her away from her concentration. She floundered in her own blood, beating at her coat desperately as she tried to put out the flames.

The air filled with the smell of burning flesh. After a few long minutes of torment, the alicorn fell to the ground, lifeless.

Heartbeat was by my side in a second, his hooves frantically pulling off my gag and looking over my body. His eyes filled with horror as he saw the grotesque pair of wings that now stretched awkwardly from my back.

“How the hell did she…” Heartbeat stammered, his pink mane falling into his face as he took in my new appendages.

“Taint…” I managed to croak out through my pain. I could see the nurses eyes widen even more at that. He mouthed the words, as if not fully believing what he was hearing and seeing. I gulped, my body feeling terribly violated. “Is… is there anything you can do?”

Heartbeat nodded solemnly. “I know a spell that can cleanse a pony of taint. I’m not as good at it as Helpinghoof or Life Bloom, so there may be some lasting side effects, but I should be able to reverse most of the damage,” He glanced in sickening horror at the wings sprouting from my back. “And I can amputate the wings, but we don’t have any pain medication… it's going to hurt.”

I put on the bravest face that I could. Heartbeat could clearly see straight through it. “Just do it. I’ll be fine…” I wouldn’t be fine. I doubted I would sleep peacefully ever again after this nightmare… not that I ever slept peacefully to begin with. Maybe Crank would protect me from my nightmares, assuming that was the sort of thing he could do.

Heartbeat quickly turned back to face Brisk and Pyre who were both gawking at my rotting set of wings. “You two! Search for healing potions. Pain medication! Anything you can find.”

That quickly snapped them out of their trance. They quickly scurried off, looking through anything that might contain medication.

Heartbeat lowered his horn and pressed the tip to my breast. His horn began to glow a brilliant pink. I could feel my insides begin slowly shifting back into place as his magic did its work. My shoulders suddenly felt heavy as the taint pulsing through them was sucked inwards and towards Heartbeats horn.

The pink magic around Heartbeats horn began to change, first darkening as if it were water filled with mud. Then bits of rainbow ooze seeped out of my skin, floating in the air above me. He levitated over a bucket and dumped the fluid inside.

I suddenly felt like I could breathe again. I still felt sick and feverish, and something inside of me felt fundamentally wrong, but my innards didn’t seem to be moving around inside me anymore. I looked up at Heartbeat, giving him the most thankful looking smile I could. I think it ended up looking more like a grimace.

“Can you roll onto your front Amber?” Heartbeat said, his face looking just as grim as mine. “I need to get to your… uh… your wings…”

I took a deep breath and rolled onto my stomach. It took a lot more work than such an action should have.

Heartbeat reached out and placed a hoof on one of my rotting wings. To my horror, I actually felt his hoof on my new appendage. The wings had been more than just fused to me, they had become a part of me!

Brisk and Pyre quickly approached, each carrying a large stash of healing potions and other chems. They dropped them off on the desk next to Heartbeat. I saw Brisk hesitate as he laid a package of Buck down on the table, but he managed to quickly pull himself away.

After doing little more than glance at the collection of chems, Heartbeat levitated over the bone saw that rested across the room from us. I gulped as I watched the jagged blade draw closer. For a second I was tempted to tell Heartbeat to stop. I mean, would having wings really be that bad?

The answer, of course, was yes. These weren’t just pegasus wings, these were rotting remains. I doubted I’d be able to fly with them and if I just left them in they would no doubt cause severe infections. Even now I could feel the muscles in my shoulder convulsing and writhing around the jagged wing bones. Whether as a result of the alicorn's experimentation or simple exposure, these wings had been infected with taint. If I didn’t remove them now, they would slowly kill me.

I realized with horror that the alicorn had been very very far away from perfecting that equation she had been talking about. Her experimentation on me was more likely to kill me or mutate me into one of those vile tentacle horrors then turn me into an alicorn.

I felt Heartbeat tapping his hoof against mine to get my attention. I glanced up at him, my eyes clearly displaying my horror. “Amber… it might be best if… Well…” he bit his lip for a second, trying to figure out how to say what he needed to. “It might be best if I strap you down. I’ll need you to be still to perform the surgery.”

I gave a very grim nod. Heartbeat exhaled deeply and began strapping down my hooves, but he didn’t seem very happy about it. he quickly glanced at Brisk. "Administer two tablets of this. it should ease the pain somewhat."

Brisk slowly moved up in front of me, kneeling down so that we were face to face. “Hey,” he said, trying to draw my attention away from the grotesque wings protruding from my spine. He held up two tablets of buck. I opened my mouth and let him feed them to me. “You’re going to be okay, got it?”

I forced myself to smile. “I’ve been through worse,” I said back slowly. I could feel myself trying to bite back tears. “If the MAS tower didn’t break me, nothing can. Right?”

“Right,” Brisk grinned back, though I could tell from his eyes that he didn’t seem to think so.

He stood up to move away. I panicked, calling out to him. “Brisk wait!” He paused, one hoof raised mid step. “Could you stay with me for this… I don’t want to be alone right now,” I knew I wasn’t alone either way, but I wanted him to be closer to me for this. Something about how the wings were violating me and the incoming pain I could almost feel approaching were making me a little more scared than I wanted to admit.

Brisk didn’t even hesitate. He moved back to me and wrapped me in a big hug, making sure to keep his hooves well away from the vile wings and out of Heartbeat’s way. “It’s all going to be okay,” He reassured me again, tightening his grip a little.

Then the surgery began. The bone saw dug into my flesh and bone, slicing away at the first wing. It was slow, and it hurt. A lot.

I went to bite down on my hoof to keep from screaming. My hooves were tied down. Instead I bit into Brisk’s foreleg. He winced as my teeth dug into his hide, but he didn’t protest. He just sat there, one hoof clamped in my mouth and the other gently stroking my mane.

The first wing fell away, leaving little more than a smooth stump where it used to be. I forced myself to look anywhere but the bleeding stump as Heartbeat began to remove the bone that had been lodged into my side. I could feel the squishy pop as the bone was pulled out.

“Pyre, apply pressure here and tend to the bleeding while I deal with the other wing,” I heard Heartbeat command before moving to my other side. “Don’t give her a healing potion until after the second wing has been properly removed.”

I felt Pyre’s strong hooves begin applying pressure to the gaping hole on my side while Heartbeat began working on the second wing. To my surprise I felt Pyre’s relatively soft coat. Apparently she had removed herself from her armour to help with the procedure.

It felt like the surgery stretched on for hours, my body constantly being forced into a new and terrible pain. Finally I felt Heartbeat pull up beside me and offer me a healing potion.

I realized my mouth was still clamped tightly around Brisk’s forehoof and I slowly pried my teeth from his flesh. To my displeasure, bits of flesh and fur stayed locked between my teeth.

Brisk took a second to make sure I didn’t need him anymore before slowly backing away and letting Heartbeat administer the healing potions to me. Each sip felt like liquid life rushing through me.

After downing the second healing potion I sat back up, my hooves having been freed from their bindings at some point. I looked at my back. Two large scars ran between my shoulder blades. The muscles were sore and it felt like I had a hundred pound weight on my back, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I knew that like many of the wounds that had been afflicted upon me in the wasteland, these would never leave me.

Pyre slowly approached, carrying my combat shotgun and stable barding. I took them gratefully and decided not to complain when both Brisk and Pyre started helping me get back into my barding. My suspicions had been right, Pyre was out of her power armour, giving me a rare view of her scarred and burned form. The large gashes Viscera had given her still seemed red and fresh, as if they had only been inflicted moments ago instead of days.

I glanced around at my friends once I was back into my barding. Xayah was still missing.

We found Xayah in a room a few doors down the hallway. She wasn’t alone.

The room had clearly once been some sort of holding cell or prison, now converted into a house of horrors. The Four Star ghouls that had once inhabited the bunker lay chained and caged within, their frail bodies deprived of food and light. They’re fur had all but rotted away, leaving them looking more like the corpses of hairless rodents than ponies and zebras. Their limbs had warped and elongated, a result of taint experimentation and other cruel forms of torture that I couldn’t even imagine.

One of the tortured ghouls crawled towards me, stumbling on their twisted and shattered legs. Their eyes were pale and looked like a pair of small silver stones embedded in their head, glinting off the light of my pipbuck. They howled at me, their pained wails more akin to a wounded wolf.

Xayah lay in the centre of the room, chained to the floor and sobbing.

I quickly rushed to her, no amount of pain stopping me from comforting her at this moment. She had been locked in here for almost two hours. Trapped in near darkness, able to see nothing but pained, silver eyes staring at her and the blood chilling screams of long since dead ponies.

Brisk made quick work of the locks holding Xayah down. The second she was free, she scuttled closely into my hooves, allowing me to embrace her fully. I led her from the room quickly. She had seen enough of this already.

A few minutes later I stood in the dark dungeon with Pyre, looking over the rotting ghouls. I glanced up at her, unsure what I should say. Pyre was back in her power armour, her expression unreadable through her helmet.

“What do you think we should do about them?” I finally asked, forcing myself to look at the twisted bodies shuffling around in the cages. “We can’t just leave them here… can we?”

Pyre shook his head. “Even I feel bad just leaving them here, but we can't free them either. The last thing the wasteland needs is more feral ghouls.”

I shone my pipbuck light into one of the cages, illuminating what was inside. The light was met by a volley of hisses as the ghouls within covered their faces and scuttled away from the light. There weren’t just a few ghouls imprisoned here either. There were hundreds. The alicorn had been planning to build an army of her own.

I gulped. I knew there was only one option. I didn’t like it. "Then... then we'll have to..."

Pyre bowed her head in grim acceptance. "Leave the room Amber. You've seen enough horror today."

I dragged myself away from the room, tears streaming down my face as I forced myself to look away from what had to happen.

Pyre’s flamers whirred to life. The howls of the ponies and zebras inside flooded the bunker as they were slowly burned alive.

Mirra was waiting for us at the entrance to the bunker when we finally arrived. Pyre had quickly filled me in that they had sent her to go scout for a way around the Star Spawn while they investigated what happened to Xayah and I.

I had at first questioned if it was smart to send a little kid to go investigate something as deadly as a Star Spawn, but this was Mirra we were talking about. She could handle herself.

Mirra took one look at Xayah and I and cocked her head, a disturbed look across her face. “What the fuck happened to you two?” She asked, her timid voice stoic and curious.

I shook my head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

The changeling seemed to take that as an acceptable answer. “Alright, so I’ve got some good news, some bad news and some great news,” she said, fluttering over and perching atop Pyre’s back.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that supposed to be sarcastic?” I couldn’t remember a single moment in the wasteland when there had been more good news than bad news. Let alone a time when there was great news.

Mirra shook her head. “Nope, looks like the wasteland is giving us a bit of a break… kind off,” She started. “The bad news is that I followed the Friendship Trail for a bit myself. It goes on for miles. I don’t know how many, but it seemed to stretch across most of Manehattan.”

“And the good news?” Brisk asked, giving the changeling a curious look.

Mirra grinned. “Well first off, there was no sign of the Star Spawn, so hopefully we won’t need to deal with it.”

“And what’s the good news?” Xayah pushed. She still seemed shaken from her time in the alicorns house of horrors, but she was doing a good job of hiding it. If anyone was good at hiding their emotions, it was Xayah.

“That was the good news,” Mirra soothed, lounging across Pyre’s back. “The great news is that I think I can speed up this whole follow the Friendship Trail thing. There’s a train a little bit down the tunnel. I think it’s still functional.”

My jaw dropped open. “It’s still… functional? As in it still has coal in it?”

Mirra shook her head. “Doesn’t need any. It's one of those newer models that were built closer to the end of the war. When trade with zebras became next to impossible, Equestria invested in a jem powered train engine. The super Locomotive 6000 I think it was called.”

Heartbeat gave a nod of understanding. “I’ve heard of these. To my understanding, Red Eye has a few working in Fillydelphia as well. They’re very rare.”

“We seem to have a knack for stumbling across things that are very rare,” Pyre replied simply, giving a small shrug. “Now how about we get going before that Star Spawn decides to come back.”

We all agreed, following Mirra out as she started leading us towards this so-called functional train. Right before I left the bunker, my eyes landed on one of the radios the alicorn had been using to block the goddesses influence. I still couldn’t hear anything coming from it, but it seemed to be on.

Curious, I hooked my pipbuck up to it and tried to see if my pipbuck could locate the origin of the signal. To my surprise, it seemed to be taking my pipbuck a few minutes to locate. I had never seen my pipbuck take longer than a second to locate anything before. Hell, it somehow managed to name and apply value to things it had never even seen before.

Xayah poked her head back into the bunker. “Amber, are you coming?”

I nodded, pulling myself back up and away from the radio as my pipbuck continued trying to locate the source. “Yup, just checking something!”

I turned and followed them out, my pipbuck still working away.

Mirra hadn’t lied. The train was rusty and many of the train cars at the back had been completely crushed under fallen ruble, but the front few cars seemed to be in surprisingly good condition for a train a few hundred years old.

I brushed my hoof along the side of the train, clearing away the dust that had accumulated over the large lettering that had been imprinted on the side. The lettering read ‘Flam and Sons’.

Mirra hopped into the train engine, gesturing for the rest of us to climb into the passenger car right behind it.

The inside of the train was not nearly as clean as the train we had taken to get to and from the Hollow Shades, but it was still remarkably clean. A bit of graffiti likely made by some passing raiders had been scrawled across one of the trains walls. I felt myself blush as I realized the crude image was that of two mares pleasuring each other.

“I like the decor,” Pyre smirked, trotting up beside me and looking over the pornographic graffiti herself. “Kinda reminds me of that one time in Tenpony Tower.”

That one time in Tenpony Tow-? My mind blanked and my face grew even redder as I realized what she was referring to. I could see Xayah beside me go red as well, clearly picking up on what Pyre had said before I did.

Brisk swatted Pyre with his tail, but he was chuckling himself.

“I don’t think I want to know,” Heartbeat said glumbly, doing his best not to look at the image on the wall. He was doing a much better job than I was.

Mirra stuck her head into the train car from a large hole that had been ripped open in the roof. A conductor's hat had been snuggly placed atop her head. No doubt she had taken it from a skeleton she had found in the conductors car. “Fillies and Gentalstallions... And Brisk!” she announced, a wide smile across her face.

“Hey!” Brisk scowled back, but he seemed to be smiling at the small changelings antics.

“We are about to depart. Please keep your hooves inside the cart at all times. Just give me a few moments to figure out how to drive a train, and we'll be on our way shortly,” Mirra giggled, giving us all a small tip of her new conductor hat.

A loud roar echoed up the tunnel. It seemed far away, but it was getting closer. Mirra’s grin faltered slightly.

“I thought you said the Star Spawn was gone?” Brisk said, sticking his head out the door of the car and staring down the tunnel into the gloom.

Mirra rolled her eyes. “I said I didn’t see it. Do keep in mind those things are invisible.”

Brisk and I stared at her in horror. “They’re… they’re invisible!” great… more things I had to fight that I couldn’t see.

Mirra waved our shock off with a hoof. “Gimme a sec. I’ll see if I can get moving,” The changeling ducked back and out of sight. I could hear her working away at the controls.

I glanced out of the train car and down the tunnel myself. Something was moving towards us through the darkness. Something really, really big. It seemed to be some kind of giant bear made up of stars. A Star Spawn! Mirra was right, if not for the glistening of what appeared to be tiny stars, the huge beast seemed to be completely invisible.

“Shit! Star Spawn incoming!” Pyre shouted, quickly looking over my shoulder at the rapidly approaching mass of stars. I could hear the booming thuds of each step the huge creature took as it thundered towards us.

It roared again, the all encompassing noise shaking the train and rattling my thoughts.

“Mirra! You need to get this thing moving now!” I yelled out over the sound of the Star Spawn.

“I said give me a second. I don’t know how to drive a train!” I heard Mirra squeak back from the conductor's car.

Pyre was pulling herself through the broken hole in the roof and onto the top of the train. I quickly started scampering up after her, my sore muscles making climbing quite difficult.

I pulled myself up, looking out at the approaching Star Spawn. It had reached the end of the train, its massive front paws raking through the ruined train cars as it tried to get at us. Now getting a good view of it, or as good of a view I could get with it being invisible, I found myself surprised such an immense creature could even fit in the tunnel.

“It’s just a baby,” Pyre said, as if knowing what I was thinking. “And thank Celestia, we would certainly be dead otherwise.”

Xayah pulled herself up next, standing beside me. I glanced at her, asking. “So… do we shoot at it or…”

Xayah gave me a funny look. “It is a Star Spawn. Unless you have any more balefire eggs, our weapons are useless.”

The massive star bear tore through another train car. The train car went flying, smashing against the wall and showering us in debris.

I ducked, a slab of broken train flying over my head. I ignited my horn and conjured a thin, magical shield between our train car and the raging Star Spawn. The shield was almost pitiful compared to the shield the alicorns could create, but it was a vast improvement to the shield I had made in the MAS tower.

The Star Spawn didn’t care. It’s huge claws lashed forwards, shattering the shield in a single powerful blow. I staggered back, my magic imploding as the force of the massive beasts attack shot through me.

Thankfully, the star spawn staggered back as well, temporarily slowed by the magical backlash of the shield.

Pyre let her flamers spew forth, dousing the Star Spawn in fire. The beast before us went from a near invisible cluster of stars to a raging bear wreathed in flame.

The Star Spawn roared in pain, reeling back and slamming at the ground of the metro tunnel. I was knocked from my hooves again as the train literally bounced into the air from the force.

The train made a loud squeak of metal on metal and jerked forwards. I could hear Mirra give a triumphant yell as she figured out how to get the train moving. I clutched to the edges of the train as the sudden movement threatened to throw me off. I could see Xayah and Pyre do the same.

Brisk poked his head out of the hole, looking at the flaming Star Spawn. “You guys might want to get below deck.

I cast a glance back at the Star Spawn. It was angry. Very very angry. Brisk didn’t need to ask me twice.

I rushed forwards, trying my best to not fly off the side of the train as the huge locomotive began picking up speed. Xayah rushed up beside me, doing her best to help me move along while trying to get in herself.

Despite the train's surprising speed, the Star Spawn seemed to be gaining on us. It charged forwards, each thump of its powerful paws against the tunnel floor threatening to derail the train completely.

I heard a whoosh and saw a jet of fire streak out from behind the train towards the Star Spawn. I looked behind me, making out the shape of Pyre. She was still standing on the edge of the train car, silhouetted by the flaming star bear that bounded after us. Her flamers were spewing fire, making the inferno around the Star Spawn continue to grow in brightness.

“Pyre, we need to get into the train!” I shouted over the booming sound of the train and thunderous roars of the Star Spawn.

“That thing is gaining on us!” Pyre shot back. “I need to slow it down!”

I could see that Pyre was right. The flames didn’t seem to be doing much damage to the massive creature, but it was at the very least slowing it down. If Pyre were to stop her constant barrage of fire, we would quickly be overrun.

I groaned and turned back from the hole into the train car, spinning around to face the Star spawn with my combat shotgun. Xayah protested, but I quickly pushed her back inside and rushed to stand next to Pyre.

Pyre had power armour and, making her weight harder for the train to throw around. furthermore, she carried tow corpses on her back, weighing her down even more. I didn’t have that luxury. Every few seconds the train would jerk about, making me stumble and lose my aim. Two shots went wide, the buckshot bursting against the walls of the tunnel, doing little more than add to the deafening soundscape.

I finally managed to land a shot, my combat shotguns slugs ripping into the Star Spawns near translucent hide. They did nothing. The Star Spawn shook it off and continued charging after us as if nothing had happened.

Well this was getting us nowhere.

The Star Spawn lunged forwards, its huge pony sized claws extended to rip into us. I leaped back, just narrowly avoiding being swiped in two as the beast claws tore into the back of the train. There was a loud crunching sound, and the back half of the train car was ripped off.

Pyre went with it, her metal clad hooves flailing about her and looking for purchase as she was tossed about. I wrapped her in my magic and pulled her back onto the train, sweat dripping from my brow as I overexerted myself with the telekinetic feat.

This was getting us nowhere. The Star Spawn would get to us in seconds. There had to be a more permanent solution to dealing with this creature.

I looked up, my eye catching on the large cracks that raced along the roof of the collapsing metro tunnel. Maybe I could…

I tried to wrap my magic around the cracks in the roof, but we were moving too fast for me to keep my concentration. The walls and roof were spinning past me, making any attempt to magically grasp onto something void.

The star Spawn swung at us again, its huge claws once again ripping into the train car. The whole train lurched to the side, tilting sideways at an impossible angle. I could hear the wheels screech. We were going to be derailed. I saw a soft, magical pink glow of light push it back up. The train thudded back onto the tracks, still bolting forwards and picking up speed. Heartbeat was keeping us on the tracks!

Alright, if levitation wasn’t going to help me, it was time to try something else. I had succeeded in mimicking the alicorns magic before, if only to moderate success. Time to see if I could do it again.

A powerful beam of amber light shot from my horn, streaking past the Star Spawn and crashing into the roof. My whole body went limp as the exhaustion from casting the spell washed over me. The roof fell.

I had intended to collapse the roof on top of the Star Spawn. Block it off from us, kill it if possible. But I got a little more than I bargained for.

The ceiling caved in, and with it came a flood of irradiated water. We had been crossing under some sort of river! Damn it!

The Star Spawn was gone, crushed under miles of rocks and water. Whether it was dead or not I had no way of knowing.

The irradiated water splashed into the tunnel, quickly filling up and rushing after us at an alarming rate.

Pyre scampered backwards, finally heading towards the inside of the traincar. “Great, just great Amber!” She scowled at me mockingly.

I tried to rush after her, but the train took an abrupt turn and sent me skidding across the roof. I grabbed onto the sides of the train as my hide hooves went sailing off the side. The door to the train car opened up and I saw Xayah reaching out to pull me back inside.

I extended a hoof, trying to reach for her. She was too far. Painfully, I began shimmying across the side of the train, reaching for the door. Water began splashing around my hooves, slicking the sides of the train and making keeping my grip a challenge.

A loud roar came from behind. I saw the water part as the invisible Star Spawn lumbered towards us.

That thing was still alive! The fuck does it take to kill that thing!

I reached Xayah, the zebra managing to finally pull me back into the train.

“You couldn’t have just let it be a Star Spawn, could you. You had to have a whole river after us too?” Brisk drawled, looking out the back of the broken train car and at the rushing water and raging star bear.

I gave him a nervous squee. “Uh… yes?” he just rolled his eyes at me. I scampered over to the door that led to the engine and gave it a quick knock. “Hey Mirra? Think you can speed this thing up at all?”

“I’m trying!” The changeling yelled back. I could hear her frantically pulling levers. How hard were the controls on this thing.

“Brace yourself!” I heard Heartbeat shout. I glanced up just in time to see what he was yelling about.

The Star Spawn rammed its whole body into the back of the train. The train car shook, my hooves slipping out from under me and making me crash into Xayah. I saw a mass of stars stretching towards me. The Star Spawn was reaching one of its lethal paws into the train car to get to us, its massive claws scratching long grooves into the sides of the train car.

There was a triumphant yell as the train suddenly lurched forwards with even more speed. “I got it!” I heard Mirra singsong. I felt myself sigh with relief as we sped away, leaving the star spawn and rushing waters behind us. There was a final roar as the Star Spawn was submerged in crashing ruble and waves.

I slumped back, my whole body aching as I finally let myself relax. Xayah flopped down next to me, panting heavily.

There was a beep, drawing my attention to my pipbuck leg. My pipbuck had finally managed to trace the origins of that strange radio frequency.

I didn’t know what I had expected. Some spot out in the middle of nowhere, a secret government facility. What I hadn’t expected was for the signal to be coming from somewhere within Tenpony Tower.

The Friendship Trail came to an end in the ruined remains of a train station. Thankfully, Mirra was much better at making the train stop than she was at making the train start.

I had almost missed the end of the friendship Trail. If I hadn’t been looking for it, we would have passed it. The red line we had been following came to a stop at another circular plaque, identical to the one at the beginning of the trail. It glowed faintly in the presence of the Friendship Express talisman as well, drawing my eye to it.

We all climbed out of the train, all our legs wobbly from the bumpy ride. Mirra hopped down next to us, a big grin across her face. “That was fun, we should do that again!” The small changeling chirped gleefully. At least somepony had enjoyed the trip.

I walked forwards and placed the small Friendship Express talisman against the plaque, not really knowing what to expect. The station filled with the clanking and grinding of gears. Slowly, the bricks around the plaque began to move away, revealing a hidden tunnel that stretched into darkness.

“Dramatic bunch, these Friendship Express ponies are, aren't they,” Brisk smirked, tapping the wall with a hoof as he peered into the dark, secret tunnel. “Think they’ll give me my own personal secret layer?”

I gave him a bump on the shoulder. “The last thing you need is a secret layer.”

Brisk pouted at me. “But I want one…”

Rolling my eyes, I moved into the tunnel. Brisk and Xayah moved in after me, with Pyre, Mirra and Heartbeat taking up the rear. Once again, the sound of gears filled the air. The secret door slid back into place behind us, blocking us from escaping. As the door closed we were cast into complete darkness.

I stumbled forwards, trying to find a wall to give me a sense of direction. Why the hell was it so dark in here?

The lights turned on.

The first thing I saw were the two huge miniguns pointed at my face. I took a step back, trying to get a better grip on what was happening.

We had stumbled into a large brick chamber. It was empty save a few turrets that rested in each corner. Three ponies stood across from us. The ponies on each side wielded large miniguns, one aimed towards me, the other towards Pyre who they no doubt thought to be the biggest threat.

The unicorn mare in the middle held a revolver up in her magic, its sights aimed at Brisk’s head. From the pipbuck around her foreleg, I guessed she could use SATS on us if violence broke out. She had a dusty brown coat and curly blond mane. Like me, she had a Friendship Express talisman hanging around her neck.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” The lead mare demanded, her eyes narrowing. Her tone held no room for negotiation. “Answer quickly or we will fire.”

I swiftly held up the talisman hanging around my neck. “We were friends of Emissary’s. He gave us this and told us to find you.”

The mare glanced at the talisman sceptically. Her eyes narrowed even more. “It is against protocol to give over possession of a Friendship Talisman without my permission, and Emissary never went against protocol,” I could hear a sharp tone creeping into her voice.

“We were helping Emissary protect a synth named Rubber Band. A courser killed him and ponynapped Rubber Band. His last act was to give me this and tell me to Follow the friendship Trail,” I quickly elaborated. I could see the mare falter a little at that. “He told me to tell you that the Institute has the Utopia Program. That he couldn’t stop it.”

The mare’s gun dropped to the ground, her magic imploding as she took a step back. She put a hoof to her head, steadying herself. “Emissary is… dead?”

I saw Heartbeat give a grim nod from beside me. He had been the only pony save myself to witness Emissary’s death.

I took a daring step forward. “We’re looking to get into the Institute. Can you help us?”

The mare took a second to calm herself. Finally, she levetated her gun back off the ground and turned it to face us. “That depends. How do I know you aren’t Institute spies that killed Emissary and are here to wipe us out?”

Yeesh, these ponies were paranoid. That said, I suppose I would be too if I was always being tailed by the Institute.

“Amber?” I heard a familiar voice pipe up. I shifted my gaze to look behind the mare. A dark buck with a grey stetson emerged from behind her.

My eyes widened with surprise as I recognised him. “Flask?”

Flask waved for the mare to lower the weapons pointed at us. “These here are good ponies,” Flask assured her. “Emissary sent them to help me back when I was in Fetlock. I sent ‘em myself to help find the Rubber Band we were looking for.”

His words sent a wave of relief over the Mare. she gestured for the two ponies beside her to lower their miniguns. “Seems your story adds up,” She glanced quickly at Flask before returning her gaze to us. “My name is Freedom. Welcome to the Friendship Express.”

She turned, gesturing for us to follow her into the room beyond.

A single red curtain blocked the doorway, obscuring my vision of where we were headed. I saw both Freedom and Flask duck behind the curtain. The other two Friendship Express operatives continued to stand guard.

Pyre quickly trotted up to me and leaned in so only I could hear her. “You sure we trust these Friendship Express ponies?”

I gave a nod. “From everything I’ve seen, they’re the good guys.”

Pyre scoffed. “There is no such thing as good guys in the wasteland Amber. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out yet.”

Before I could linger too long on that, I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the headquarters of the Friendship Express. My breath caught in my throat.

The Friendship Express Headquarters was a large brick chamber. Brick archways branched off from the main room leading down a network of tunnels to a myriad of different rooms and large pillars rose up from the ground to support the ceiling. Large desks had been scattered across the main area, each one covered in papers and terminals. Ponies dressed in dark cloaks and fedoras darted back and forth around the room.

“This is the Friendship Express?” Xayah uttered from beside me, clearly as taken aback as I had been.

“It's… really small?” Brisk blurted, unable to catch himself.

Freedom cast him an annoyed glance. “We need to stay small. The Institute has been trying to find us for years, and they excel at infiltration and surveillance. We need to keep a low profile or the Institute would be on us in seconds,” She continued walking, gesturing for us to follow with a hoof. “You need to get into the Institute. Unfortunately, we are yet to have properly located them ourselves. That said, we do have a plan to get in if you are willing to help.”

I nodded, trotting up beside her. “We’ll do what we need to.”

Freedom gave me a grim look. “I hope so, because it won't be easy,” She came to a stop in front of a terminal covered desk. A small yellow mare with impossibly large eyes sat behind it, tinkering away at one of the terminals with some sort of screwdriver that looked more like a clockwork pocket knife. “Sprocket, we have some guests. Would you mind telling them about our plans to get into the institute.”

The small yellow mare I now knew as Sprocket shot up in their chair, looking us over. She cast a nervous glance at Freedom. “Are you sure? That's like… suuuuuper confidential and…”

Freedom gave an authoritative nod. “These ponies just braved the Friendship Trail. I think they might be just the ponies we’re looking for.”

Sprocket gave a nervous nod before turning back to us. “Well I guess I’ll start with a question,” She gestured to my pipbuck. “I see you are in possession of a pipbuck. Tell me, have you encountered a synth?”

I nodded. “I saw one on the roof of the Fluttershy medical centre yesterday.”

“And did you notice anything strange about it?”

I paused, thinking that over. “Well… it didn’t show up on my EFS… I thought it was rather odd, but I also might have just been distracted.”

“Nope, that's it!” Sprocket said cheerfully, clapping their forehooves together. “The Institute has found a way to disguise EFS. Annoying little trick, because it makes tracking them real damn hard.”

“What does this have to do with getting into the Institute?” Brisk asked, frowning slightly.

Sprocket rolled her eyes. “I’m getting there, hold your horses!” That was an odd statement. Sprocket continued. “Anyway, question number two. Do you know how the Institute gets in and out while making sure no pony ever finds the way in?”

“Teleportation,” I said, almost instinctively. I had seen non magical teleportation used a few times now, Including the synth that had taken the A.A.S.S. I also had my suspicions that the courser that had murdered Emissary had used it to flee the crime scene as well.

“Ding Ding Ding!” Sprocker announced cheerfully. “The Institute has managed to create a device that allows for instantaneous teleportation anywhere in the wasteland. A feat far beyond even the most powerful unicorns in Equestrian history. We can’t get into the Institute because there is no entrance to get into. Not one that still exists anyway. You need to teleport.”

“So what? There’s no hope?” Pyre groaned, her expression obscured by her helmet.

Sprocket shook her head. She held up a pipbuck that had some form of bulky machine screwed into it. “I created a teleportation device. Similar to that of the Institutes, only significantly less powerful. It has two charges. One to get into the Institute, and one to get out. But of course, there’s a catch.”

“And that is?” I pushed. If these things could get us in, we needed them.

“Well, two catches actually. First is that they’re still incomplete,” Sprocket explained. “The way they work is that they latch onto somethings EFS marker indefinitely. If it can lock onto a synth before they teleports back into the Institute, then it can follow them in.”

I suddenly realised what Sprocket was getting at. “But… Synths have managed to block EFS.”

“Exactly. Which of course brings us back to square one,” Sprocket said glumbly. “But I know how to fix that. Close to the end of the war, the Ministry of Wartime technology created two things. A targeting talisman and an anti-cloaking device. Get those, and I can repurpose them to detect even synths on EFS.”

“A targeting talisman?” Pyre scoffed, cocking her head to the side a little. “Aren’t those in like… every turret in the entire wasteland? Hell, you have four just waiting for you at the entrance to your base over there.”

Sprocket rolled her eyes again. “Not just any targeting talisman dumby! You think a normal targeting talisman can track a teleporting synth across the entire fucking wasteland? No! What I need is a Super targeting talisman.”

“And where are we going to find these?” Xayah said from beside me.

“The MWT’s Manehattan hub isn’t far from here. It should have all the things we need inside,” Freedom said, speaking up for the first time since handing the conversation over to Sprocket. “We’ve tried to get in there a few times ourselves, but we haven’t been able to get past the ghouls.”

“Sounds easy enough,” I said. I had fought worse than ghouls. How bad could it be?

Heartbeat raised a hoof into the air above his head. “You said there was a second catch? What was that?”

Sprocket nodded again. “I only have two devices, and each one can only take one person. Only two of you will be able to go into the Institute. And they’re magic activated, so you need to be a unicorn,” She glanced down nervously at Mirra who was hiding herself behind Pyre’s hoof. “Or a changeling I guess.”

I felt a bolt of discomfort shoot through me at that. Only two of us? I could hold my own in a fight fine, but I was far from the best combatant in the wasteland. The idea of not having Pyre for protection was a frightening one. And the last thing I wanted was to leave Xayah behind.

I glanced around at my friends worriedly. I could tell from their expressions that that didn’t sit well with them either. This was going to be interesting...

Freedom raised a hoof to catch out attention. "look, ponies. I am trusting you a lot with these secrets. Flask trusts you, and Emissary was one of our best operatives. If he trust you then I trust you," Her face grew serious, her eyes looking each one of us over. "But the Friendship Express operates on secrecy. We don't give out second chances here. Disloyalty against the Friendship Express will be considered an act of treason. And we punish treason very harshly. Do you understand?"

I gulped, giving her a quick nod. This was going to be very interesting indeed...

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Chem Resistant -- You are half as likely to get addicted

Author's Notes:

Two chapters in one day? It's a miracle!

Hope you enjoyed and have a good day!