>"Anon?. Anon!"
>"...Aunt Celestia... Did she just... Kill herself?! Why?!"
"Don't look there"
>"I'm sorry I broke your order! There was fighting and shooting at the station. Then it all went quiet, and you didn't come... I was worried, and went looking for you..."
"Listen Scoots... I told you earlier, who should be told the truth, and who should not... Forget it! It's not for us to decide! And if you're being fooled, it's never for your own good!... that's why she's dead"
>"I... I understand..."
"Nghh...Good... And now... Let's go home, Scoots."


--------2 months later---------
"Pine, this is Alder, come in. Over"
>"Alder, this is Pine, Speak. Over"
"Private, im at the bunker's door. I'll be off the grid while i'm down there, don't know how long. When is the next scheduled radio contact?"
>"Midday sharp, Colonel!"
"The battery?"
>"Keeping it charged"
"The door?"
>"Locked. I'm eating the hay too. And burning the slime. And i don't go to the dirty stations, ever. Dad, you let a whole cheat sheet for me, im reading off it now!"
"You do just that, reading helps you remember. That's all Pine. I'm going offline"
>"Roger that, Alder. Over and out."
"Pine!, come in, Over."
>"Pine here!, Over."
"I love you Scoots. A whole lot.
>"Huh.. I love you too dad."
"And I want you to eat that hay! Without fail! Over and out!"

>And with that you turn the HT off, leaving it behind inside the carriage to protect it from this ruthless winter
>You can barely discern where you are, only making out the faint light of the bunker's entrance and the silhouette of the Canterlot Satellite Communications Center.
>But that's enough, your only goal lies within the archive rooms of the dilapidated building
>Only armed with a makeshift flamethrower you enter the bunker. Carefully walking down the stairs as for not trip or disturb any creatures that could be lurking there, having only the light of your weapon as your guide you finish the stairs.
>At the bottom there is a small room, nothing out of the ordinary, for a nuclear winter at least.
>A couple of Unicorn corpses are laying down there, one laying against the wall while the other is just on the middle of the room.
>These ponies don't look civillian, they are wearing top notch equipment, lead lined suits and gas masks with oxygen tanks
>In fact, they are using almost the same equipment you have currently, but thats to be expected, after all you are from The Emergency committee like every other soldier.
>But that doesn't matter anymore, everyone is dead. Nobody but you and Scoots are left, and if you even hope to get out of Canterlot you NEED what's inside this place.
>As you walk forward you encounter a cassette player with the letters EMCOM branded over it.
>You hit play


>"EMCOM Soldiers! You have accepted a mission of absolute secrecy and upmost importance: to recover a map of a region with tolerable levels of radioactive pollution from the Canterlot Satellite Communications Centre archive. Circumstantial data suggest that special attention must be paid to maps detailing The Great Lake, near Bumbleland. So far, our efforts have been consistently proven fruitless, but now you must be successful no matter the cost. I can't disclose the ultimate goal of this search at the moment, but I'll have you know that lives of all the metro dwellers depend on it. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds, good luck gentlecolts.

>As you continue to go forward you look around for anything that could help you find what you're looking for
>Debris, broken office chairs, unkept walls with puke green paint. this place has definitely seen better days
>You also see X markings on doors, lockers, and windows. Probably left by others soldiers looking for the maps, at least this could help you somewhat
>After a while you enter another room, this one has several elevators on the sides, all of them marked with an X or with the words "Nothing here" and "RADIATION"
>Right at the end of the room there is a blast door leading to the next part of this provisional labyrinth
>Just as you take a couple of steps towards the door, you hear a buzz and a voice from the building speakers
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>"System will reboot now
>This takes you by surprise. How this place even has enough juice to broadcast an automated response to the whole complex? it has been almost 20 years since the bombs fell, nothing should be operational.

>As you advance you reach the doors, they aren't closed completely and you can squeeze between them with relative ease
>These doors lead to yet another room, this one is huge, only being iluminated by emergency lights on the walls and ceiling
>The stairs are busted but thankfully a vent duct falled down making it easy to climb down to the floor of this hangar
>Its hard to navigate the place, a lot of rubble, cars and broken tanks are blocking the path to the next exit
>Seems like more than just a hangar, this place was used to live in. There are bunks, more lockers and even an improvised workbench

>"System will reboot now"
>Suddenly, as if someone were watching you the facility comes back to life. The main lights illuminate the whole area, a bunch of broken carriages, guns and metal are scatered all over the floor, with the light only making it more obvious
>At least you can see were are you going. for now. 
>Right after the lights turned on a strange sound started going off like crazy
>In the heat of the moment you forgot about that thing you and all the other soldiers wear religiously, your Spark Counter
>Made specifically to detect radiation strong enough to harm living tissue
>A good Spark Counter is one that doesn't make any noises, so with that in mind you hasten your pace towards the next door

>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>"Biological shielding compromised, initiating reactor shutdown"
>The announcer hasn't stopped talking since the lights turned on but it doesn't matter, as long as there is light you can easily reach the end of this hangar, in fact, you are almost at the door.
>Your counter hasn't stopped 
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>As you reach the blast doors controls you hear something else from the voice
>"Attention!, Reactor biological shielding compromised"
>"Attention!, Reactor containment failure"
>And with that the lights go out, everything looking darker than before for the previous exposure of light
>You also notice your Counter stopped, or at least just cracks a couple of times every minute or so which is good
>"Reactor containment failure. Reserve power, engaged"
>As you reach the control room you notice the big switch for opening the door
>Hoping that the reserve power is enough to open it you flip the switch.
>"Reserver power failure, switching to main power source"
"Crap"
>Seems like there isn't enough juice to lift that door, not with the reserve power at least
"There has to be a way to switch to the main pow-"
>"System reboot preparation is-"
>"Twenty. Percent. Complete"
"Huh, convenient"

>You just have to wait to the automated system to reboot and use the main power source again so you can continue
>Seems easy enough
>"Forty. Percent. Complete"
>But then something startles you, a sound to be exact. Something similar to a rat but much deeper
>You don't like this
>Pumping oxygen into your flamethrower you prepare for anything that sound could be
>"Sixty. Percent. Complete"
>Right after the announcer, as if it was on cue, creatures the size of ponies started pouring in from the vents and holes on the walls.
>They looked like hybrids, half pony, half mole. They lacked hair or fur and had teeth and fangs the size of your knife
>With a screech they start rushing towards you, luckily they don't seem very bright so your flamethrower does a nice job roasting them as they come
>The problem is on their numbers, if you weren't standing your ground on a corner they could have easily surrounded you
>You don't know how long can you keep this up before you need to reload
>"Eighty. Percent. Complete"
>You aren't running low on gas. on the contrary, there is plenty of fuel laying around this hangar from previous ponies that walked here
>You'll soon will need to change tanks though and you don't think these things will wait for you
>"System reboot complete"
>Suddenly the lights turn on again, your counter start to crack like crazy and the blast door begin to open
>The mole-ponies also stop coming out, seems like they don't like fire.
"Thank god"
>Without taking a break you quickly change your tank, just in case any other mole wants a piece of you
>The door is completely open and the hallway is illuminated once again 
>After crossing the door your luck runs out again
>"Attention!, Reactor containment failure"
>"Reactor containment failure. Reserve power, engaged"
>It seems like the lights can't stay for too long before the system reboots the whole thing and switches to reserve
>Just for it to also fail and try to initiate the main power reactor
>An infinite loop
>As for what you can gather the whole process also releases dangerous levels of radiation to the whole facility every time it tries to initiate the reactor
>Must be leaking from somewhere

>As you decent deeper into the facility you encounter more of the same: rummaged papers, pony corpses, bones and more moles
>The arrows and signs don't stop. they seem written all over the place guiding you and potentially others towards the more unexplored levels
>This place barely holds together, there are flooded areas, rooms filled to the brim with debris, and corpses everywhere
>It seems that whoever was in charge of this operation didn't care about casualties at all and just kept sending more and more soldiers to search for the maps
>It doesn't help that every system reboot your body takes dangerous levels of radiation
>Its no wonder why there are so many dead ponies here.
>At first you think that it was the moles but they seem rather harmless compared to the other wildlife that roam the metro
>Is the radiation that kills
>One minute you could feel great and the next you just sit down to take a "break" to never wake up again
>Scary
>Hopefully you find the maps soon and get out of this hellhole 
>You can even taste the radiation by now
"hm... tastes like chicken"

>Thank god for the signs
>You don't know how long you have been exploring these ruins but you think you don't have much time left before radiation sickness starts to kick in
>You only have one dose of the "green stuff" left. You left the rest back at the base with Scoots for when you come back with the maps and for travel to whatever The Big Lake is
>After a little while of more following signs you enter another room much like the first one you encountered with the elevators
>Only that this time the door is closed shut so your only way to getting in is to wait again for the reactor to reboot
>"System reboot, imminent"
>You started to fear that voice now
>"System reboot complete switching to main power source"
>Oh boy here it comes again
>Your Spark counter goes off like a maraca
"Nnhg ah-ahh... Haahhh"
>You can't take this any much longer
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>The lights turn on yet again and now you can open the door
>Just as you were fliping the switch to the door you hear screeches
"Oh no.."
>"Biological shielding compromised"
>Suddenly, just like before, dozens of pony-moles start pouring in. Screaming and hissing and running all over the small room
>Your strength was already affected by the radiation and your only hope is to keep them at bay just enough to escape to the door and lock it shut again
>This time isn't so easy though
>As if the universe wasn't fucking you hard enough, the room decides to give you a little help and activate the extinguishers since your fire apparently isn't allowed here
>This only disorients you more than what you already are.
>You can't see them well with your dirty gas mask and all the smoke so you do the only thing you can and spray your embers in all directions
"Come on... just a little more..."
>So far your body was still in one piece and the blast door was opening without problems
>Maybe you can pull this off
>"Biological shielding compromised, initiating reactor shutdown"
>The lights go out and the door stops rising
>The gap is way too small for you to fit through
>Oh no no no no
"No no NO NO NO"
>This can't be happening, you were so close you could feel it
"Maybe there is another way into th-"
>Before you could finish that sentence you feel something grab your leg
>Its a mole. Apparently you didn't burned everyone, there are quite a few left now that you can see without the smoke blurring your vision
>It start to drag you back to the others
>You struggle trying to get to your flamethrower but the initial pull made you lose your balance
>Now you are fighting with just your hands
>Not like this
>This can't be how it ends
>Scootaloo is still waiting for you back at base, you can't die now.
>There is only enough green stuff for her to survive for a couple of months at best, you can't die now.
>You just can't

>Just before the other pony-moles started chewing at your face there is another loud growl that shakes your bones 
>Then whatever it was it drops down and stuns your mole friend 
>Without skiping a beat you take this opportunity to move back and get to your flamethrower
>After getting your footing back you now take a look at what was that thing
>That thing is HUGE
>Looks like a gorilla but without any kind of fur, and black like a changelling 
>That thing is easily 8 feet tall and with arms reaching the floor even with its height
>You also notice that its blind, or more precisely it lacks eyes, not even eye sockets
>For now its beating into a pulp your mole friends so at least you have that going on for you 
>It took only a couple of seconds but that thing absolutely destroyed the moles, beating them like a rat inside a sock
>It stops
>Your blood runs cold
>It can't see you can it?, sure if you don't move it will go away looking for more moles
>"̷I̷ ̵k̸n̴o̸w̵ ̴y̸o̴u̵'̸r̶e̷ ̶t̴h̴e̷r̶e̸!̷"̶
>Did the fucker just spoke?. no that can't be right your eyes were glued to it and not once did its lips moved
>"̴I̵'̶l̶l̴ ̷f̷i̶n̶d̸ ̵y̶o̶u̶.̷.̶.̴s̷o̵o̸n̸.̸"̷
>Then WHY you can HEAR it?!
>Maybe if you walk around it you can find another way into the next room
>You just need to be carefu-
*Crack*
>As if it was a joke you step into broken glass 
>The thing practically lunges towards you
>"̶F̵O̷U̶N̶D̵ ̵Y̴O̴U̴"̵
"AH FUCK"
>You do the only thing you can and release all the flames your flamethrower is capable of spitting

>You're in deep shit now
>Using the flames you try to push him back enough to escape
>It was working
>For a bit
>Instead of running towards you the blind one starts to grab the bodies of the pony-moles and throws them at you
>The fucker is smart
>You only can dodge the barrage of bodies that the thing throws
>These small moments are what the beast hope for trying to round you up into a corner
>And its working
>You are running out of options, the door is behind him and there is no way you can outrun him
>But then, an idea
>Instead of fighting him with fire you aim at the places where the extinguisher gas was released from not too long ago, maybe there is still some left
>And to your luck, it is
>Curtains of fire extinguisher start to pour in making it almost impossible to discern whats what
>This is your chance
>You sprint towards the exit with all your might
>This is it, you are almost free!
>But before you could run away from him you feel its hand grabing your ankle
>Flying back all the distance you made before sprinting your body smashes against one of the elevators door, breaking it.
>How stupid can you be?
>That thing is BLIND
>You only fucked yourself with that bright idea
"Aghh.... fuck...Nghh..."
>The thing aproaches
>It has you now, but you can't give up
>Looking for anything, you take a look at the elevator door
>There's only the doors, behind them is just a small fall, the actual elevator is on the lower floor. Maybe you can jump down.
>Without giving you any room to breathe the thing starts punching your general area
>This gives you time to go down the elevator cable 
>The bad news is that your flamethrower got stuck on the elevator door
>You have to think fast
>Seeing as the thing can't fit between the doors you get this chance to depresurize your flamethrower gas tank hoping that it punches it after getting to a safe distance
>And it happens
>Or at least part of it
>The thing rips the elevator doors with ease and swings its arms towards the flamethrower, only giving you enough time to climb down a couple of feet before the explosion goes off
>You lose your grip of the cable and come falling down the elevator shaft
>Your eyes are ringing, your vision is blurry and your back its killing you. But you are alive
>Looking up you see the blind one. its not moving, hopefully for good.

>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>You want to lay down and rest so badly. But you can't, not until you get the maps
>Looking to your left you see the emergency exit of the elevator. You enter it
>Without any elegance you just drop down like a sack of potatoes making an audible blunt noise
>Getting up ain't easy but you manage
>Looking around you see just one sign with the words: "RADIATION! NO ENTRY!"
>A little too late for that you think
>Looking around with the faint light of the elevator you see where you are
>Its a small office kitchen, totally destroyed and blocked off by debris
>The only way around it is climbing up the cable grid and vent system so you do just that
>While you are traveling the vents you star to notice.. things...
>Your Spark counter hasn't stopped cracking since you were fighting the blind one. honestly it was just white noise at this point
>You also hear ringing every so often, like a really bad case of tinnitus
>And there are these artefacts you are seeing in your peripheral view, like bright green dots covering all your eyes
>Hopefully its nothing the green stuff can't fix
>While crawling through the vents you also hear more blind ones
>You don't know if its the radiation poisoning but you cant hear them whisper you in your ear
>"̵W̴h̵a̵t̸ ̵i̷s̶ ̸t̴h̸i̸s̷?̴"̴
>"̵W̷h̴a̸t̶ ̸n̶o̷i̸s̶e̷?̷ ̷W̴h̵a̷t̶ ̶t̷h̵i̷n̶g̷?̷"̵
>"̸Y̴e̶s̴,̸ ̵f̴o̸o̶d̶,̸ ̴y̵e̴s̶.̷.̴.̶"̵
>Just a little bit more....
>"Reserve power failure, switching to main power source."
>You can't see them but they definitely are there. Looking for you, growling and yelling
>"Reserve power source failing. System reboot imminent"
>You can't stop now, you are so close you just know it
>"̸W̵h̶a̴t̸ ̵i̵s̶ ̶t̶h̴a̶t̷ ̶s̵m̴e̴l̴.̸.̶.̵"̴
>"System reboot preparation is... sixty.."
>After a while of crawling you reach an open vent in front of what appears to be the an archive
>This has to be it...
>You drop down like before, hitting your head in the process
>The room is full with bones. pony bones.
>You don't care though, you are here only for the maps and nothing else
>Looking at the archive there aren't many things there, in fact there are only 2 metal cylinders, nothing more
"Well, here it goes nothing..."
>You slowly approach the archive first grabbing the upper cylinder
"Empty..."
>You carefully place the cylinder back, trying to not make any noises 
>As you pull the second one you first notice that is closed
>Maybe this is the one
>You rotate the lid to see whats inside... aaaaaand.....
"Nothing....."
>"System will reboot now..."
"Th-this can't be it!, there's gotta be more! maybe if i go back i--"
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
"nhg-ahh A-aahh!..."
>"Biological shielding compromised, initiating reactor shutdown"
"I gotta use... the green stuff... it can't end like this.... nghhhh...."
>And with that you pull out your vial of this "green stuff", nothing more than a radioprotector but in a world filled to the brim with radiation, a life saver.
>Just as you are about to inject yourself with the radioprotector you notice something
>There is a pony leaning next to the archive, long dead
>There is nothing out of the ordinary with that but he is also hugging something, that something being what you are looking for
>Another cylinder!
"Wait... could this be?..."
>"Reserver power failure, switching to main power source, system reboot imminent"
>You reach for the cylinder, the pony almost making it feel like it doesn't want to give it
>With a strong pull you manage to get it out of his hooves
>The moment of truth
>You open the tube
>There is a map inside! but you need to make sure... could be something different
>You slide the map down into your palm and check it
>It doesn't have a lot, just a bunch of coordenates and zones marked for radiation
>And also... The Big Lake!...
>It appears clean, no irradiated zones close to the place!
"Scoots..."
"This is it!"
"I found it!"

>You knew it!, the maps were here and you got them!, now you only need to get out of this hellhole and get back to Scoots
>Things are starting to look up
>With the newfound strenght you push through the dizziness and the radiation sickness
>The artifacts are getting worse and now there is green fog that covers the whole place
>You decide to turn off your Spark counter, no reason to attract the attention of any blind one
>As you advance you also hear more grunts of and growls. taking extra care to go unnoticed you keep walking
>"Reserve power source failing"
"Just a little bit more..."
>"All personnel are to evacuate the complex immediately"
>Your vision is getting dimmer
>"Reserve power source failure, switching to main power source"
>There it is!, the blast door to the exit!. its partially blocked off by debris but you can easily crawl under!
>"System reboot imminent."
>Only a few more steps...
>"System reboot complete, switching to main power source"
>Suddenly, as you were about to crawl down you feel a sharp pain all over your body
"The damn reactor again..hgnnn fu-"
>You fall down near the blast door
>You then look back and see a blind one just a few feet behind you screaming in pain before fainting
>Guess they aren't totally immune to radiation
>You can barely stay conscious, but you power through
>Heaving and with a excruciating ringing you throw the cylinder first to the other side
>Then you crawl your body to the other side too
>Exiting far enough to sit right next to the corner of the room you reach for the injector
>You need to inject yourself with the green stuff NOW
>And you do it
>You pull out the injector with the vial and start to aim at your arm
>Just as you were about to press the needle against your arm, another arm comes out of the blast door
>The blind one woke up and now is grabing your leg pulling you in.
>Trying to stop him you use your other foot to stop yourself and then you try to reach for the manual wheel to close the door
>After a final push you turn the wheel and the heavy door comes falling on the beast arm, severing it clean

>Without any wait you push your leg out of the graps of the beast arm, you don't have much time left you need to hurry
>Turning around you look for the injector and then you see it...
>When the blind one grabed your leg you threw it hard enough for it to shatter and spill
>Hastily crawling to the injector you grab it, the green liquid staining your glove.
"n-no..."
>Throwing away the injector you reach for the map
>Vision is heavy
>You hear nothing but ringing
>Your heartbeat entering tachycardia
>Using some old computers you try to get up one more time
>Maybe you can still make it...."
>Just as you were about to stand up you lose your balance
>Your heart enters bradycardia
>You are so tired now
>Crawling a little more you reach a wooden chair
>Maybe resting will help
>With the map in one hand you shakely reach for your watch
>Scoots just fixed it for you on new years eve, you don't even know how she did it

>*thump thump* *thump thump* *thump thump**thump thump*
"Scoots...I'm coming back..."
>*thump thump**thump thump**thump thump**thump thump*
"I just need a tiny bit of rest... "
>*thump thump**thump thump**thump thump*
"I'm just... "
>*thump thump**thump thump**thump thump*
"so tired..."
>*thump thump*

>*thump thump*

>*thump thump*


>*thump thump*


>*thump thump*



>*thump thump*



>*thump thump*




>*thump thump*




>*thump thump*



>....