//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - The Librarian // Story: The Sunseekers // by Candypony //------------------------------// A door opened up behind the sitting stallion, making not a sound as it parted for the ship’s captain. Only the soft trotting of Dusk Dancer’s hooves on the metal floor gave any indication of a visitor to the pony who sat at his desk, bent over a history book, taken from several piles of similar titles.          “Hey, Atlas.” The pony inclined his head slightly in her direction. He was listening. “What’s all this about a missing friend of yours? Seems you’ve got the Seekers worked up over him.” The brick-red earth pony stiffened visibly, then sighed and put his book down, followed by his reading glasses. “Yes. Name’s Nocturne.” Something inside Dusk Dancer clicked, but she couldn’t quite place what. “Go on.” “I grew up with him. Kept in touch after I moved, but it seems like all he ever does is get in trouble. Now, he’s fallen off the grid entirely and I can’t find him, or any record of him.” “What’s he look like?” “Uh... Grey pegasus colt with bright blue eyes and a blue mane. Don’t think he had a cutie mark last time I saw him. Haven’t seen him in years, though. What’s with the face? Something wrong?”         “No, nothing’s wrong, I—” Dusk Dancer averted her gaze, preferring to stare at the floor after being caught. She pretended to tap a hoof to her ear for a moment, and put on a look of concentration. “Sorry, Sapphire Shock called. She wants to see you down in her lab. Said she had a present for you.” Atlas nodded in response, and returned to his desk to pick up his reading glasses. The rather dusty book underneath was titled Ancient Apples. “Still working on tracing your family, huh?”         It was Atlas’ turn to tense up a bit, and he gently closed the book, setting his reading glasses back down. “Eeyup,” he started. “I managed to find a record of ancient towns and their founders... and one of them was started by my very own ancestors. The thing is, it’s a graveyard, now. A rather... famous one.” At the mention of ‘ancestors’, the dark red earth pony cast a glance to his flank, which had been adorned long ago with a large golden apple mark.         “A famous graveyard? Surely you’re not talking about... Ponyville Graveyard?” Dusk Dancer visibly shuddered at the thought. She knew the story like everypony else; a story of Luna’s terrible vengeance against the first town to openly rebel against her rule. Since then, nopony dared to set foot inside, superstition doing its job of keeping ponies away from its secrets for centuries.                  “That’s the one.” Atlas rose, towering over Dusk Dancer like he towered over everypony else. He shook his orange-golden mane a few times as he trotted towards the door, leaving Dusk Dancer alone at his desk with the history books. Out of curiosity, Dusk Dancer took a seat and reopened his book, bookmarked at the section “Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres”.         The captain soon lost track of time while reading. According to the history book, Ponyville hadn’t been a graveyard at all, almost a millennium ago. It had been a small and peaceful community for all sorts of ponies, locating near someplace called ‘Canterlot’. Dusk Dancer paused momentarily. The name Canterlot sounded familiar. Ah, she remembered. Canterlot was an old name for the capital. She continued reading. The town had grown around a family of apple farmers and their apple orchards. Beyond those few details, most of the town’s history went unrecorded by the author, instead skipping forward to what had led to its transformation into one of the most feared and infamous names in pony history.         Ponyville had played host to the first armed rebellion against Empress Luna, not too long after she had taken power from the previous regent. The rebellion had been sparked after evidence had been found that Luna herself had been behind the disappearances and eventual murders of five ponies. A sixth had also disappeared, but a corpse had never surfaced. Luna had the rebellion violently quelled, and almost all of Ponyville’s residents were slaughtered by her personal soldiers. With most of Ponyville gone, the Empress decided to turn the town into a proper graveyard, as an example for those with similar ideas. The illustration on the last page struck Dusk Dancer as particularly interesting; The drawing depicted six symbols gathered around an orange spiked circle. Most of the symbols held no meaning to her: The balloon, the butterfly, the lightning cloud, and the diamond. Two of them, however, stood out to her. The apple, similar in shape to Atlas’ own mark, and the double six-sided star, identical to the two overlapping six-sided stars that appeared on her flank when she found her talent for magic. Dusk Dancer closed the book and returned to the bridge, pondering how these symbols from the distant past could relate to her. ***         “Howdy, Inventor. The Captain was sayin’ you had somethin’ for me?” The tall earth pony had to duck to make his way through the door to the Inventor’s lab while he spoke. His attention was almost immediately drawn to her captive, still sleeping in his makeshift cage.         “Yeah, yeah. You ever heard of the Destriers?” The unicorn asked without turning from her worktable, still putting some finishing touches on whatever she was working on.         “Somewhat. Mostly just rumors. Supposedly they’re an experiment in cyborg shock troops. What’s this got to do with me?”         “Everything. I dug deeper into Destrier data, and managed to recover a few prototype armor models. Now, these suits are made for heavily augmented ponies, and you’re the only pony we have that might be able to wear it.” she finally turned around to face him, grinning like a maniac. Her horn glowed, and her contraption levitated into the air. “Hold still for a sec.”         “Hold up. Did you say ‘might?’” Behind Sapphire Shock, Atlas could see the armor pieces arranged on a pony-size figure already. The front half of the body armor began glowing dark blue, and unclasped itself from the figure, making its way towards Atlas.         “Yeah, but come on, this is for science. Pony up, buck-o.”         Atlas shrugged. The chest piece had two large holes, so he leaned forward and put his hooves through them, and it slid on neatly and sealed along a seam that ran parallel to his spine. With the hardest part over, Atlas held as still as possible while Sapphire Shock maneuvered him into the rear half of the armor, the greaves, and finally, the helmet, which bathed his vision in a thin rectangle of red with its visor. Sapphire Shock seemed to be finished and waiting with baited breath.         “So? Did it work?”         “Did... what work? I don’t feel any different, just heavier.”         “Huh. Bugger.” Sapphire Shock trotted closer and asked Atlas to turn his head to the side for a second. When he obliged, she reared back and gave the side of his armored head a solid punch with her hoof.         “Hey, what’s the big... Woah.” Recessed lines began to glow bright cyan all over the bright silver armor, and a hose that connected the helmet to the spine began to undulate. Atlas shuffled from hoof to hoof inside of his new armor, feeling lighter and lighter as his armor began to power up.                  “See? All that Imperial hunk of junk needed was a little jump-start.” Beaming from ear to ear, Sapphire Shock grabbed a piece of metal several feet thick and telekinetically launched it Atlas-ward.          Seeing the incoming metal only moments before it hit, Atlas’ leg shot out at a speed that surprised even Sapphire Shock, turning the metal sheet into a cloud of metal shrapnel, as if he punched a grenade.         “I like it. What else can this thing—” Interrupting Atlas was a soft whine coming from the center of his chest, two plates sliding apart to reveal an aperture that glowed brightly even in the already bright lab. If nothing else worked, Atlas would make a great lightbulb.         “...do. What am I, a lighthouse?”         “No, you’re a Librarian in high-tech prototype armor made for augmented cyborg ponies. That, my friend, is the latest in Imperial weapons tech, ripped straight out of some bad science fiction. It’s a damned laser beam, as far as I can tell. Big’un, too. I don’t want you blowing holes in our ship, though, so cool it with the death ray for now.”         Atlas nodded and after a moment’s pause, the portal sealed itself. He was about to ask if the suit is any easier to take off than it is to put on, when most of the plates slid, telescoped, and compacted in various ways until only his midsection, chest, the back of his neck, and hooves were armored, giving him much more mobility. The red rectangular visor remained, floating an inch or two in front of his eyes. “You’re right, this is some bad science fiction. I could see how a walking tank is pretty handy to have in a firefight, though.”         Sapphire Shock’s grin hadn’t faded since he first put on the armor. “Glad to see that works. Don’t let it go to your big head, though. You’re tough, but you ain’t invincible. Now, about this bugger over here...”          Atlas turned at last to the captive, eyeing him warily. “Almost forgot about him. Yeah, let’s see if he knows anything about old Nocturne. Mind leaving us alone for a bit, Inventor?”         The unicorn nodded, removing the muffle spell on the cage and slipping out of the room with a flash, leaving the two stallions alone in the unicorn’s lab. Atlas walked up to the cage and gave it a hard bucking, the noise enough to rouse the sleepy stallion.         “Howdy!” Atlas rumbled to the caged pony, who had shakily stood up to meet the new face. The prisoner couldn’t help but take a gulp as he looked up into the eyes of the new pony, momentarily forgetting he was still a damned Lunar Knight and should act like one. He straightened up and coughed.         “And what do you want, scum?”         “Scum? Now, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve to be called that. I’m just a simple librarian. What makes you think I’m scum?” Atlas continued staring down at the pegasus. Something about Atlas’ bright green eyes was already beginning to unnerve the prisoner.         “Well, you... you’re with the rebels, aren’t you? Haven’t they sent you to get something out of me?” Good. The pegasus was already starting to perspire.         “Rebels? Me? Shoot, naw. They think I’m workin’ for ‘em, but my loyalty’s still to Luna. As soon as I get the info I need from these rustlers, I can get us both out of here. And I’ll tell you something they don’t know.” Atlas, for effect, craned his head back and scanned the room for any eavesdroppers. “I’m a Knight myself.”         The pegasus was now listening intently. “Another Knight here, undercover? I didn’t know we had any. You must be some high-level black-ops kind of pony, huh? What section are you from, anyway?”         Atlas almost panicked. He hadn’t been anticipating that. Thankfully, something crackled in his ear, and he paused for a moment, then turned his head and nodded. The movement was so subtle that the pegasus missed it while blinking. “Section Fifteen.”          “Oh, shit. You must be pretty high-ranking then, huh? Has there been any new development with that pegasus punk you captured?”         It took all of Atlas’ willpower to keep his face straight. “You mean the market thief? The one we got a few days ago?”         “That’s the one.”         Atlas finally allowed himself a small, triumphant grin. “Oh, I’d say he’s given us just about all the information we need.” He unlocked the cage but stood in the doorway, blocking the pegasus’ retreat. Atlas stepped forward and knocked the pegasus off of his feet with a swift strike of his foreleg, watching as the pegasus slumped to the floor. “Captain,” he spoke, looking about for a camera so Dusk Dancer could see them. “We’ve got what we need. What do we do with this joker?”          “Up to you, Atlas. Get creative.”         Atlas looked down at the unconscious pony. Pegasus, gray coat... With some blue dye to his hair, the knight might actually make a decent pass for Nocturne. They might be able to sneak in and exchange the two. He looked to Sapphire Shock’s worktable, where the full set of the pegasus’ Knight armor was lying. A grand scheme began forming in Atlas’ head.