Beginning System Diagnostic…
Report: Damage detected
Overall damage: 17%
Armor compromised: 22%
Leg Drive Motor Damaged: 19%
SWORD Depleted
Forward Hydraulics Damage: 15%
Core Coolant Damage: 9%
Structural Damage Detected: 12%
Diagnostic complete. Unit X-456(ALT) has sustained damage. Auto-repair functions initiated. Estimated time until unit returns to optimum functionality: 42:33.58
I… am hurt. I must… fix myself somehow.
Unable to connect to network. Network status negative. Communications diagnostic reports reception functioning.
Network status negative. No network detected.
I am alone. Where am I? This place feels familiar… yet not.
No databank entry detected. No information available. Location unknown.
I'm lost, alone and injured. How can I repair the damage by myself?
Error- auto repair function already initiated. Estimated time until optimum functionality: 42:33.40
Error- unit will not be able to return to full operational functionality without facility assistance. Optimum functionality for operations: 80%
Current functionality: 64%
I… I can't fix myself completely unless I get back home. And I don't know where home is. I… I need to rest.
Alert! Long-range sensors detect unidentified inbound on approach vector. Classification: FB-05 Flutterbird Assault Gunship
A Flutterbird? Is it Vice? One of the others?
Bogey is not broadcasting IFF signal. Status: IFF signal is being jammed. Assume intent is hostile.
It's not them… then who is it? What do they want from me?
Analysis: FB-05 armament data found. Displaying data:
Twin long-range "Firequill" missiles(x8)
"Pop Rocket" Anti-Armor unguided rocket system(x24)
Dual mounted medium "Infernal" laser cannons(x2)
"8-ball" anti-pursuit tail-mounted turret(x1)
Threat level: Moderate. Alert- System damaged. All threats reclassified: Maximum Hostile.
They have a lot of firepower… and they're coming for me. What can I do?
Suggested course of action:……..
Evasion?
Negative. System damaged- unable to evade.
Open communications?
Negative. Target is jamming communications. Hostile intent confirmed.
What can I do? Do I have any defenses?
Negative. Defensive countermeasures offline.
I don't want to fight them… I don't want to hurt anypony else. What do I do?
Suggested course of action: Intercept and engage.
No… no, I don't want to hurt anyone.
Alternative actions unavailable. Necessary action: Intercept and engage.
NO! I won't attack anything else! I'm not going to do any more damage!!
Self-defense override initiated. Launching Surface-to-Air missiles.
STOP IT! STOP IT!
Error.
STOOOOPP!!
Error.
"What the heck happened back there?! What did you do?!"
"What I had to," Dan said, smirking at Vice over his shoulder.
"You blew them up?!"
"Calm yourself, doctor. I did what was necessary."
"Oh yeah, I believe that," Vice said, exasperated. "If there's a chance to kill someone and get away with it, I'm sure it's necessary to you."
"We got away, didn't we?" Dan asked over his shoulder. "And I still have candy up here. You want to split half of my Toblerpone?"
Vice folded his arms. "No, I don't want any of your Toblerpone," he turned away. "You could've gone with them. They could've relocated you, I could've gone on my way and we would never have seen each other again."
"Aw, but I like you," Dan said. "I told you already, we're-"
"A lot alike, yeah, you mentioned it. Except that's a load of crap. I don't go around abducting, blowing up and murdering people."
Dan gave him a knowing look. "That's not what I meant."
"Ugggghhhh," Vice sighed. "Then what did you mean?"
"Well, little things," Dan turned his attention back to the controls. "We're both good at what we do and we enjoy it. We're professionals."
"I do what I do to help people," Vice stated. "You do what you do to help yourself."
"True, but I also help people in my own way. And you also help yourself doing what you do," Dan said.
"I think the Resistance might disagree with you."
Dan turned around again. "Of course. Just as the Empire might disagree with a certain hospital treating certain patients they don't want treated. That's another way we're alike: we're not afraid to break the rules."
Vice didn't say anything to that. It was true he and the other doctors were going against the Solar Empire by treating the Resistance. They all knew it, did it anyway. They agreed long ago that helping people, that doing good went beyond any rule, any regulation, anything. Politics became confusing: both sides were often right and wrong in their own ways. Doing good in the world didn't take a side… or at least, that is what they believed. But was it true?
The Solar Empire had done things that were undeniably cruel, sinister but no more than the Terran Empire had. And both factions promoted order where otherwise there would be only chaos and despair. Sure, they had slaves and the slaves didn't live well but it was no worse than the Egyptians. And the Resistance had done bad things, too. They had persecuted prisoners wrongly, detained innocents suspected of loyalty to the Empire and often their attacks disrupted Vice's own hospital. But… they had mostly apologized for those things, done stuff to make up for them.
Were there really good guys and bad guys here? Maybe this was a black-and-white issue. Doctors like him operated in the gray… and too often it only led to more red. Maybe Lightning was right; maybe the best thing to do right now was to get involved, do the right thing, stop supporting a regime that only caused harm. But if Dan knew this, why would he-
"Another way we're alike," Dan said, breaking Vice's contemplation. "When you kill somebody, it's an accident. When I kill somebody, I have to make it look like an accident. You know, usually. We're both surgeons in a way, you catch my drift?"
Vice tapped his chin. "You had something for a moment, with the first two. But then you lost it. Seriously, you're comparing the few times our medicine has failed to your political killings. I'm not a psychiatrist but I'm going to recommend you to a buddy of mine," he said, getting out his notepad again.
"I wasn't always trying to kill them," Dan said, his voice suddenly sincere. "They send me after a lot of people, a lot of ponies. Put down an uprising, shake down a business owner, beat down a rebel rouser. By day, enforcer. By night, hit man. It's… not always easy."
For the first time, Vice started to notice how stressed Dan looked. The unkempt goatee and hair, the dirty shirt and clothes, the pair of crocs that look worn down to the heel. The realization hit him hard. "You're a slave."
Dan turned around again. This time, his eyes seemed like they were almost watering. "They were going to kill me. I told them, just like you told me that there was a weapon they could use. I took them to my bomber, told them I could unlock everything for them and they could use it against Terra. And they did. I betrayed my entire race to Twilight and the Empresses… and they rewarded me by sparing my life."
Vice was stunned. "I… I'm sorry."
"Heh," Dan chuckled. "No Terrans are free any more. No one in the Empire is free- not me, not Twilight, not the Empresses. It's a machine of conquest and control and we're all a part of it. We try to escape and it crushes us; that's just the way it's always been, Terran and Solar Empire. Some of us have shorter leashes than others but we're all bound to it."
"You don't have to be bound to it," Vice said. "I might live in the Empire but I don't do what they say. That's where we're different. I'm not suggesting you join the Resistance but you could move. After we take care of the weapon, we could set this bird down somewhere in the Griffon Regions, drop you off in one of the balancing cities and you could disappear. Leave all of this… this violence and oppression behind you. Start over."
"That's not an option for me," Dan stated gruffly. "Not for a human. You, you're a pony. You take off those prosthetics and you'll be just like any other for-legged creature around here."
Vice held up his right prosthetic. "I wear these gloves to remind me of what we can do when we work together. Each finger is like a… hoof, kind of. Alone, they can still push buttons, move things but together," he spread the digits out, flexed them and then brought them close together. "We can do anything. And I can help you disappear."
Dan turned around again. "How?"
"Reconstructive surgery. A friend of mine, lives in the broken bow of an aircraft carrier, he can give you a new face."
The human looked quizzical. "Would I really have to go through surgery?"
"Well, there are other options. There are potions and other things we could use to alter your skin pigment, possibly modify a bit of your facial features, musculature and skeletal structure without surgery," Vice said, thinking. "It's going to be a bit more complicated making potions now that the Zebra Republic is gone."
"Ze-what?" Dan asked.
"The Zebra Republic," Vice repeated, anger in his voice, though not directed at Dan. "It's the place that used to be all around us, the ashes of the nation we're flying over right now!"
"Oh," Dan said. "Never heard of it."
Vice sighed and slumped back into his chair. Why was he able to remember the Zebra Republic if Dan couldn't? Was he the only one who remembered them? Suddenly, he realized he might be the only being that even remembered what a zebra was. He frantically pulled out his notepad and began writing. He jotted down every note he could about zebras, the Republic, who and what they were, his friend Dr. Cross-Eye, everything he could remember. He realized some of it might not be right but he didn't care. This might be the only chance he had.
"The Zebra Republic," Vice said out loud. "It was the nation established by the zebras following the Consolidation Wars. Zebras are known for their peaceful nature and pacifism as outlined by some of their philosophical leaders like Minister Zen Zeal." Vice flipped the page, began drawing the zebras. It then came to his knowledge that this might be the only chance he had to catalogue the genus of the entire species of zebras. He held his hand up to his head, almost crying. So much knowledge, so much culture and history and all of it was gone.
He finished when he ran out of note space. He flipped back to the previous pages to review.
"Huh…? What?" he asked shocked. "No… no," he flipped through the notepad, the one he'd just written down everything he could remember about the zebras. The pages were blank. "No! NO!!!"
"What's wrong?" Dan asked.
"Every… everything," Vice's voice trembled.
"Uh…"
"Everything's gone! It's all gone!" Flipping frantically, he turned back to the page he'd just finished. The diagram of a zebra, one he'd tried to sketch with as much detail as he could of a standard zebstallion, was changing color. The graphite from his pencil was changing color from gray into the same rainbow aurora of the sky, a mix of colors that ebbed and flowed like a thin soup. The picture evaporated off the page in front of Vice's eyes, pouring like sand from the page into tiny chroma specs and then into nothingness. The next thing that hit the note pages were his own tears. They stained the thin, white sheets and would make writing anything else on them nearly impossible, if they were even legible. The tears did not evaporate.
Vice threw the notepad agains the wall of the craft. "THIS. This is why I didn't want to get involved! This is why I HATE war!" he yelled. "All it does is take from us everything we've built, everything so many people fought for…"
Dan smirked. "You realize, they fought wars for that stuff, too, ya know?"
"Not wars," the doctor protested, sobbing into his gloves. "There are other ways to fight without taking lives. Without doing things like this."
"Heh. And if they worked, you and I both would be out of a job. I'll admit, a weapon that does this," he gestured out the cockpit, "is a tad extreme. But I've worked for two Empires so far and let me tell ya- war is the only thing they understand. Weapons are the language they speak, troop deployments, tactics and numbers are their very tongue. The only thing they respect even remotely is power," Dan said with some amount of confidence. "That's why we're going to speak to them on their own terms."
"So they'll build something like this?!" Vice yelled. "So they'll build more of these things and do this to more species across two planets? And more if and when they find them?! The weapon itself came from another universe- what if they go there next?!!"
"Calm. Down," Dan said. "We're going to make sure they'll never build another one."
"Oh yeah? And how's that?"
"We tell them the truth," Dan said. "We tell the Resistance and the Empire that if they don't stop the fighting, there's a bunch of these giant ponies that will blow them into literal oblivion if they don't stop. We show them what happened here, tell them it'll happen again unless they get along and we go on our separate ways."
Vice frowned. "That… that's Lightning Claw's plan!"
"No, it's not."
"That is EXACTLY what HE wants to do! Down to the letter!"
"Nooooooo," Dan continued, "the Resistance wants to force the Imps into a treaty which they will never go for. We're going to force them into peace."
"WHICH IS THE SAME. EXACT. THING."
"Look, the Empire hates the Resistance. They don't want to acknowledge they exist and on paper, they don't. They claim every attack is either just another random uprising or disorganized rebellion. They will never give an opposing faction credibility."
"That's not what they said on the news," Vice muttered.
"Celestia and Luna will let Canterlot and Equestria get nuked before they agree to talking to the rebels. And they have another planet under their control so they can stand to lose one. But, if we tell them there's an entire alternate universe full of these things, the Empire gains another enemy, the Resistance loses a weapon and they're forced to be nice to each other for at least a little while," Dan said. "When the Empresses find out about another dimension, who knows? They might ignore the Resistance and try to conquer another planet entirely."
"That's not an end to the war," Vice said. "But this may be the beginning of the end to everything else."
Dan smirked, something of a twinkle in his eye. "You won't let that happen."
Vice was about to ask what he meant by that when a high-pitched siren started blaring inside the cockpit.
*DREEDREEEDREEEDREEEDREEEDREEEDREEE*
"What's that-"
"Missile lock!" Dan shouted. "HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!"
He didn't have time to react before Dan pulled the bird into a pitched turn to the right. Outside the craft, a missile almost half the size of the craft itself flared past them like an arrow set on fire.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Vice screamed as loose items were thrown to the wall of the vehicle. The restraints kept him in the seat but he felt his heart in his throat. The whole world was on its side, pulling him towards it as Dan continued the maneuver.
"Urrrrggh!!" Dan groaned to pull the controls in the opposite direction, causing the craft to bank left. Another missile flashed past, barely missing their right wings. "Ahhh! Haaa… haaa," Dan breathed. "Keep holding on, doctor!"
"I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE! I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!" Vice yelled.
Dan pushed the controls forward, forcing the craft closer to the ground. He hoped the missiles wouldn't be able to track them so close to the surface. If he put enough distance between them and the missiles before they caught up, they might be able to lose them. He wiped the sweat from his forehead; he hadn't been in combat, not in the air anyway, in a long time.
"You okay?"
"NO! NO, WE'RE GONNA GET SHOT DOWN!" Vice yelled.
"I got it, doctor," Dan said. "It's under control; I was a combat pilot back on Earth. We'll be all right."
"OH I DEFINITELY FEEL SAFE NOW!" Vice continued yelling. "I WAS SAFER WITH THE COWBOY GUY! GET HIM BACK HERE!"
"Heh," Dan laughed, wiping off more sweat from his brow. "Actually, Waylon's not very good when it comes to dodging Missiles units. It's one of the best ways to take him out on maps like-"
"Look… look!" Vice pointed.
Dan looked up from the controls to see what looked like a pony on the horizon. Only it wasn't on the horizon; it was just standing on the ground and they were flying directly towards it. "Oh mai gawd… it's a giant pony. It's an actual giant pony."
Ultimate Annihilation Independent Platform
Magic Gear ALT
FIST Special Operations Unit X-456