(Warning: Due to my penchant for pop culture references this chapter contains mild Iron Man 3 spoilers. You have been warned.)

Chapter 8:

“Dammit...” I grunted, slipping down as I struggled to maintain the shields, falling to my knees. “We're going to need a miracle to get out of this...”

"SOMEBODY SAY MY NAME?!" Rumbled a deep terrifying voice from somewhere above us. There was a horrifying smash as the windows on the third floor exploded and a massive black and red dragon burst into the room above us, wrapped in a familiar green shield. Ruby red fire shot from it's mouth, engulfing the second floor slowly, the robots vanishing behind the flame, missiles exploding harmlessly in the flames, well not harmlessly, they blew up inches from the robots that fired them, simply causing more damage to themselves and the others around them. Lasers shot out through the flame, bursts of plasma too, but they exploded harmlessly against the shield around the dragon

Slowly the lasers and plasma blasts stopped as the overwhelming heat caused the robots to cook, circuitry melting, sensors burning out, until finally the only sound left was the crackling of the flame and the panting of the dragon.

"You guys okay?" The dragon asked, the voice horrifying but so familiar.

"Yeah, we're good Lily thanks..."

The dragon was wrapped in green light, slowly shrinking back to her normal size, the light vanishing and being replaced with Lily, back in pony form, panting deeply.

"So you can breath fire?" I asked, she just smirked.

"Hey! LITTLE HELP?!" Brutus bellowed from the roof just outside the windows Lily had smashed through. I grabbed him in my magic and lifted him down to us.

"What the fuck happened in here?!" Brutus asked, looking around the area. "CB!" He ran to the door, seeing the injury the girl had sustained.

"Don't worry about me Daddy, worry about getting that no good Paul." She said fiercely, totally focused on the lock on the door, a bobby pin in her mouth and a screw driver in her hand.

"What? Wait...huh?" He looked stupidly at the rest of us.

"Paul isn't who he claimed to be." I said bitterly, sitting down to try and keep the room from spinning after all the strain I'd put on my magic. Venture and Lily did the same. "HE'S Castor..." I was mentally kicking myself for being so taken in by him for so long. I was an idiot, I knew myself, I saw things in him I knew were wrong and yet I'd over looked them basically out of scientific curiosity.

"What? That bastard!" Brutus growled. "Wait...Daddy?" He looked at CB, his face white as a sheet.

"Yeah I know." She said, taking the bobby pin out of her mouth. "I'm not dumb."

"I...I guess?" He shrugged.

Jack laughed and patted his back. "Don't worry about it m'boy." The ghoul came over and knelt in front of me. "That was an impressive light show you put on there, you saved everyone, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it."

"How do you even know what I'm thinking?" I asked.

"You get to be as old as me, you learn to read people."

"I'm a pony, according to computer records my kind, such as it was, went extinct in the apocalypse, how did you learn to read my emotions?"

"I'm just that good." He smirked, mussing my mane. "Just don't beat yourself up about it my little pony."

"Yes sir." I smiled, standing up and shaking off my depression.

"Alright, lets get after that asshole," I said, stepping forward, "excuse me ladies." Ruby and CB moved back and I stuck my horn to the lock, channeling as much energy as I could into it and blowing out the lock with a massive discharge, the plating on the other side firing out and clattering against the wall. I pulled Rose's Thorn from the ground and wiped the blood from the blade.

"Hey! I was gonna keep that blood!" CB said indignantly. I looked at her curiously and she just smirked. "Dude, gross." She said, sticking her tongue out.

"Alright, I just wanted to make sure. You humans have weird practices." I slid the blade into it's spot on my barding, even without the scabbard, which Paul seemed to have left attached to his belt when he ran, it sat comfortably and was easily pulled out for use.

"Ready?" I asked, looking to the others, all with weapons drawn and ready. I looked intently at Venture for a moment then turned back to the door but Jack leaned down close to me before I could open it.

"He could have done nothing, and left CB to die on the floor. I think he's earned at least a little trust." He whispered.

"Alright fine..." I sighed softly, turning back to my brother. "DON'T...Make me regret this..." I said, pulling Ebony from her holster and holding it out to him. He just smiled softly and nodded, taking the gun and holding it down beside him.

I moved back to the door and yanked it open, seeing the three or four indicators pop up on my E.F.S. showing the robots that had amassed at the ends of the hallway.

"There's at least three bots at each end of the hall."

"At least?"

"They're clustered so close together I can't get an accurate read from my E.F.S."

"I believe this is your department Jackie boy." Crackshot said.

"Yes ma'am." He smirked, stepping up to the doorway, taking a deep breath.

"Allow me." I said, throwing a shield around him, much easier to shield a single target than the whole area I had been protecting earlier.

"Thanks lad, the missus would never forgive me if I got shot." He laughed, pulling his plasma pistols and stepping into the hall, opening fire, one pistol pointed in each direction.

It was like watching in slow motion, Jack's pistols blazing as plasma spat out the ends, passing through the rippling shield and lancing out at the robots, the roar of missiles as they exploded, the bursts of heat and kinetic energy smashing against my shield as the shock waves and heat were forced down the confined halls. My Pipbuck showed two still on the right and one on the left. He turned right and opened fire with both pistols, laser bolts vanishing harmlessly against my shield, which I realized was glowing green again.

I looked to my left and saw Lily sitting there, adding her power to the shield, Venture on my right doing the same.

After two more explosions in the hallway he turned and started with the last robot, which took only moments before one last blast tore through the hall, blowing out a chunk of wall a dozen meters or so from us.

"Well, that wasn't so bad." He smirked, turning back to us, the spent plasma batteries popping from the guns before he snapped in fresh ones, the pistols whining as they recharged. "Now shall we go get that bastard?"

"Totally." I nodded, moving into the hall with him, the others following, Lily transforming back into her human form, her armour flying through the shattered window, she bent and twisted as the pieces of armour flew to her, snapping onto her body and redeploying along her, covering her again.

"You gotta teach me that trick."

"Sorry, Changeling secret." She smirked.

CB paused just long enough to pick up her arm, wrapping it in a towel she had in her pack, with Ruby's help, and tucked it away to take home, then took the pistol from her hip and nodded. "Lets do it."

//////////

The next hour was frantic, every junction, every hall, every room, had robots in it. When we came across those at a distance Jack would usually dispatch them with lethal efficiency, in the smaller rooms Venture, Lily and I would throw shields into the rooms, pinning the robots to the walls and causing them to explode when they tried to fire missiles at us.

Finally we found our way to the stairs, and with a quick effort, cleared the way to the third floor, which seemed to be the top.

"This place is built like a lot of old military bases." Jack informed us. "The top was executive offices and top secret labs." As if on cue a loud whining noise came from beyond the door and we rushed in, finding no offices or labs, just a massive open area.

Castor stood at the far end, typing furiously on a computer as a massive gird of pipes groaned and rattled.

"HEY!" Jack fired at Castor, but the plasma burst against a shield a few feet from Castor's back. A dozen robots opened fire on us but our own shields held nicely despite the amount of effort we had to continually put into it though Jack and Brutus and Crackshot opened fire on the robots just as quickly.

"STOP FIRING!" Castor roared, his voice almost hysterical in it's rage, and the robots stopped, though that didn't stop Jack from blowing up three more of them before hesitating.

"You monster!" Ruby snapped, bringing up her assault rifle and opening fire on Castor, but the bullets hit the shield and fell uselessly to the ground.

"Aww what's the matter Ruby?" He asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Are you angry that I hurt your precious baby girl? Or are you mad that you put your trust in a man for the first time since your...time with the Enclave, only to end up betrayed again?" He laughed.

Ruby choked back a response and I could see tears in her eyes that she blinked away.

"Paul...Castor...Whatever...I don't understand...You have a time machine, why are we even standing here having this conversation?" I asked, stepping forward slowly. "If your machine has worked as long as Venture has been here why haven't you gone back in time and taken over already?"

"Why? WHY?! He's why!" He said, pointing a finger at Venture.

"Me? What do I have to do with it?"

"Your Pip-Buck." He said, gesturing upwards, a massive computer monitor above his head coming to life, showing Ven's old robot body. "It contained data I could never have imagined. MAGIC...fucking MAGIC weapons, Magic technology. Weapons that run on gems, poisonous Taint...Balefire...Magical radiation that doesn't dissipate like normal radiation. I needed that tech, the weapons, the robotics, the magic tomes, if it can be fused with technology it can be reverse engineered back into just magic, and from there I can do anything I need with it."

"So what?"

"So what?" He asked, stepping forward. "So what do you think? I had to get the technology, but how?" He stepped back to the computer and waved at the monitor, new pictures, calculations coming up on the big monitor. "I was capable of time travel, but I couldn't crack the inter-dimensional barrier, that took magic. Megaspells and Crusader Computers, things I didn't have access to. Fluttershy had geniuses working for her to develop Megaspells."

"But...what about you?" I asked dumbly. "I mean...you're me...or something...We talk the same, we act the same, we have Ebony and Ivory...I SAW the emotion in your eyes when I talked about Rosalea."

"Close, so close." He said, shaking his head. "I'm him." He pointed to Venture. "Believe me I'm him. But I did something he didn't have the guts to do. I dealt with my stupid brother. I went and got him from cryo storage. But rather than reviving him I simply scooped his mind out, and downloaded my own back into his body. That took some doing, since the processes was meant to go human to robot not vice-versa, again your MAGIC giving you an advantage in that department, resorting dear Venture to his former pony self with little effort."

Another wave of his hand and the data started shifting, dates, times and G.P.S. coordinates. "Then what did I have to do? I had to reprogram my time machine to allow for teleportation around the Wasteland. Finally, I managed to back track the appearance of the inter-dimensional portal and set my machine to the time and location. Problem is, time flows differently in Equestria, it's faster for some reason. By the way, even if you DO get back, your friends and family are all long dead by now." He laughed. "It's been 200 years since you left."

"LIAR!" I roared, but before I could go off half cocked Venture stepped up, resuming his place as the cold and logical brother. "If time passes faster in Equestria how is it that seven years passed here while only a day or so passed in Equestria before your return here."

"Good question." Castor smirked. "I knew where I was going to have the portal reappear when I came back. I knew your brother would be the same goody two shoes..."

"FOUR shoes." CB interrupted, surprising all of us. "He's a pony, so he has FOUR shoes."

"Hey kid," Castor said, "I don't care, shut the fuck up."

"Hey ass-butt, you cut my arm off, you don't get to say shit about shit to me." She retorted.

"I'll cut your tongue out if you don't watch it."

"I can't watch my tongue, it's in my head stupid." She countered.

"CB..." Ruby said softly, but she ignored her.

"You have any more pieces of sage advice? Maybe I should keep an eye on my back? Or, or I should lick my elbow for luck? Come on genius, lets have another gem of wisdom. Seriously! You stalled for SEVEN YEARS just to get some tech? Why not go back in time, take over and THEN work on breaking inter-dimensional travel with tens of thousands of scientists enslaved to help? If you had brain one in that HUGE melon on top of your neck, you would be living the sweet life out in Southern California's beautiful San Fernando Valley, circa 1989." The rant seemed to have stunned Castor into silence.

"CB...did you just quote Ghostbusters at Castor?" Brutus asked quietly.

"Umm, yes..." She nodded.

"Okay, just checking."

"You little shit..." Castor said finally. "I'm going to kill you last. I'm going to let you watch as I gut your mommy and your daddy, then your grandparents, then Venture and dear sweet Lilith, finally I'm going to slice Cane's belly open and impale you on his horn so the two of you can sit and watch each other die."

"That's a little intense don't you think?" Lily asked, crossing her arms.

"No, no I do not." He said, again starting to work himself up into something of a frenzy. "I think it's too little for a mouthy brat like her. Maybe, maybe I'll cut out her tongue and sell her to slavers. I'm sure a little girl like that fetches a fine price."

"HEY!" I fired a concussive blast at the shield, and though the shield held the burst of magical energy made him jump. "You watch your mouth." I paused and looked at CB. "And I'll get you a mirror to do it if I have to." I added, making her grin.

"It doesn't matter! None of this matters!" He turned his back to us and resumed typing furiously on the computer. "Soon the portal will open and I'll go back in time with my army of soldiers and we'll take over the United States, broker a deal with China to stop the war before it starts, and finally we ramp up production of robotics and then invade Russia and China, taking the other two super powers in one fell swoop. They'll never know what hit them. Then I'll get to work on Inter-dimensional travel.

"Oh so suddenly my idea is good?" CB laughed. "Wow, you know you're smart when an eight year old has to come up with your ideas."

"Shut up you little fucking cun..." He was cut off as a massive explosion rocked the building and plunged the whole room into darkness.

"FINALLY!" Lily exclaimed. Her body lit up and she threw a shield bubble around Castor, hauling him off the platform and slamming him into the wall beside us.

"The fuck?" Jack exclaimed, looking around in surprise. "What just happened?"

I closed my eyes and sent a ball of light out of my horn, a spell I had had CB teach me after we first met Xem in the caves. The ball of light rose into the air, a string of magic connecting it to my horn as it lit up like a blue sun, filling the room with light again.

"We knew we were out matched when we saw the robots through the windows, so I pulled an Iron Buck 3..." Lily grinned, pressing her shield harder against Castor, who was still pinned to the wall.

"You what now?" Crackshot asked.

"Iron Buck..." CB said softly. "Iron Man? You made an automated robot out of your suit?" She asked.

"You are a clever girl." Lily grinned. "Used my magic, recorded a request for help and sent it back to the Collective, we just had to stall loud mouth here until they could arrive to help. I told them to bring EMP weapons, I didn't think they'd short out the whole building, but oh well."

"So that was...?" Jack moved towards a wall and opened a window. "That was Brotherhood knights detonating an EMP device? The collective got the Brotherhood to come out after us?"

"They want the tech I bet." Crackshot said.

"Let me go!" Castor bellowed, thrashing helplessly against the shield.

"Oh no, that's not how this works." I said, stepping forward, wrapping him in my own shield, Lily letting hers drop away. "You're lucky I don't kill you. You managed to make things SO MUCH worse than Venture did." I said coldly. We could hear the doors below open and the sound of the brotherhood knights marching in.

"TOP FLOOR!" A voice from below bellowed. "IT'S THE ONLY PLACE WITH LIGHT STILL COMING FROM IT!" I realized they were referring to my magic orb. I let it burst, plunging the room into mostly darkness again.

As the soldiers marched up the stairs Lily let her armour snap shut again and she put her hands up, wrapping Castor back in her magic, since it would look more like she was able to generate a shield of some kind. "I think we'll let CB decide what to do with you since she's the one who has suffered the worst." Lily said.

The soldiers marched into the room. "We got a request for aid at this location from The Collective." The lead soldier said, assessing the situation she came face to face with. She reached up and lowered her helmet, revealing a tall woman with tan skin and short pink hair.

"Oh ey." Jack said, putting on his accent again. "Eye'm head of the council." He stepped forward.

"You're Jack MacManus." The soldier said, a note of reverence in his voice.

"That eye am lassie." He said, shaking her hand.

"Star Paladin McKenzie." She said, shaking his hand in return.

"Ahh a fellow Scot, always nice." He laughed.

She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to notice Venture and I sitting off to the side, just quietly looking at the ground.

"A...Are those unicorns?"

"Long story." Brutus said, smiling sheepishly.

//////////

An hour later the humans had finished bringing the Paladin up to speed on everything. How Castor had deceived them, tricked his way into their organization to try and steal computer data on the organization so he could plan an attack on them to shut them down. My ownership in the story changed from Paul to Ruby, explaining all about the 'research facility' she had found Venture and I in a few years earlier. Two guards stood in front of Castor, who had been stripped of his weapons and sat cuffed in a corner.

"And when you triggered the EMP I made my move with my portable force field and took him out before he knew what happened." Lily explained.

"Well thank you...Fantoma?" The paladin asked and Lily nodded. "Thank you Fantoma." She said again. She looked at Jack. "We need to discuss payment for this, because the Brotherhood isn't in the business of just dropping everything to save civilians."

"Of course." Jack said. "Eye've already thought it out and eye think it's more'n generous. Ye get the facility," He started, "All the robots, all the components, weapons, scrap, computers, everything is yours. In exchange you leave us this section up here for the next week, then it's all yours too. We also want to be allowed to have ow'er techs go through the computers and make copies of every byte of data for ow'er archives."

"Fair enough." She looked at Lily. "I'd like your armour. It's decades ahead of anything I've ever seen."

"It's not so easily surrendered." Lily replied.

"Understandable, alright boys, pack that trash up and lets get out of here with him. We need to go back to base and get official sign off on our new acquisitions."

The guards started to haul Castor to his feet. "Wait." CB said, stepping away from her spot beside Ruby. She walked over to them and looked up at Castor. "Hey asshole," she started, "what did the five fingers say to the face?" Before he could answer she hauled off and belted him across the face, with, of all things, the hand of her severed arm, no muscle tension made it twist kind of like a whip, the impact snapping loudly. Celestia forgive me, despite the situation, I lost it, my laughter echoing around the huge lab, completely blowing my cover in front of the group of Brotherhood troops.

"D-Did you s-see that?" I cackled. "Wh-What did the five fingers s-say t-t-to the face...SLAP! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I fell back howling with laughter.

"Dammit Cane..." Lily sighed, her helmet hissing open and sliding down around her into the collar. "Fine...the armour is all yours...just don't mention the retarded unicorn?" She asked.

"Done." The Paladin said without looking away from me.

//////////

Two days later Venture and I stood side by side, as we put the finishing touches on the rebuilt time machine. We had worked almost two days straight on it. It was nice to be working with him again, we did so well together...More than once someone in the group had commented that it was like watching a single green blur work instead of a yellow one and a blue one. Of course we would run into a problem and argue loudly about how to fix it, in the end always managing to work through it. Finally the machine whined to life and a swirling white disc of light appeared inside the grid of wires and pipes Castor had been powering up.

"Got it!" We both yelled, hoof bumping and turning back to the group. "Who's the best pony? That's right, we're the best pony." I said, grinning at the others.

"You two are morons." Lily said, rolling her eyes, dressed in the simple black dress she had first worn into the human wasteland. "So is this it? We're going to be able to go home?"

"Yup. We studied all of Castors calculations, it seems that even though the portal is only open for a few moments on either side, it's ACTIVE for a few moments here, but for a WEEK in Equestria. So worst case scenario we get back a few days later than expected. Everypony will be worried, but nothing terrible."

"Well actually worst case scenario, we fucked this up and end up 65 million years in the past, or we fall out of temporal existence."

"Well yeah, but the odds of that are in the billions."

"So are we going?" Lily asked.

"I'm ready if you are." Venture nodded. "It's not like I have a ton of stuff." He gestured to the small pack he had gathered together in the last few days, it basically just contained the robotic leg with his pipbuck, a few hard drives with all the data on the time machine, and some food and meds.

"I'm going to miss you guys." CB said, coming over and hugging Lily tightly, which Lily returned, then she turned and wrapped her arm around me.

I nuzzled against her cheek. "Sorry I'm going to miss show and tell kiddo." I said, smiling sadly.

"Don't worry about it...I found a severed arm, it's WAY gross and I betcha everyone will love it."

"Oh well good, as long as you do well in school, that's all I ask." I laughed. "Oh, actually, one other thing...Go back to The Hub, find Xem, that boy that got attacked by the slavers. I have a feeling he needs a few friends."

"You betcha Mr. Pony." She nodded, wiping away tears before they could fall.

There was a round of hugs and somewhat tearful goodbyes, I was never good at these sorts of things...

"Oh, Brutus...I put this together for you." I pulled a hard drive from my saddlebag and floated it over to him.

"Is it gay porn?" Ruby asked, "because I don't know where you got gay porn, but he has lots already, and if it's just you doing things with your magic...well that's weird and I would be VERY interested in seeing that..."

"Mom, gross." CB said, sticking her tongue out at the other woman.

"It's hacking software, a mixture of human and pony ingenuity. You'll have a much easier time with this than looking for someone to come to the base and try to break encryptions."

"Thanks man." He said, tucking the hard drive into his own pack.

"Jack, Crackshot, I know these aren't technically mine to give, but I don't want them." I floated Paul's Ebony and Ivory out of my pack and held them out to the ghouls. "One for each of you."

"Oh...Thank you laddie." Jack said, taking the guns from my magic grip. "Dibs." He added, looking at Crackshot and grinning stupidly.

"You don't get to dibs a gift you shambling pile of bones." She said, smacking him upside the head and snatching Ebony from his hand.

"Ruby...I'm sorry I don't have anything to give you that is special to me...but I found these and they kind of remind me of you..." I dug into my bag one last time and came out with a stack of comic books, wrapped in clear plastic sleeves, they were yellowed but had survived the centuries well.

She took them from me and looked at them. "Tank Girl?" She asked, looking at the covers one by one. "Never heard of it."

"Well you kind of remind me of her. Maybe a little less crazy than the woman in the comics, but I'd swear Tank Girl was modeled after you if these comics weren't more than 200 years older than you."

"Well, thanks Cane." She said, kissing my horn gently.

"Alright, I guess this is it." Lily said, stepping over to the portal with Venture.

"If we ever master this technology on our side, we'll totally come back and visit." I said. "I'll bring my friends, or maybe you can come see us."

"It's a date." CB nodded.

I joined Lily and my brother in front of the portal.

"There's no place like home." Venture grinned and we walked through the portal.