Causitive
If someone, right now, ever asked me how my week was going, I’d tell them I’m burning off karma at a truly ludicrous rate.
Good or bad, I’m thinking the jury’s still up on that bit. I’ve met some cybermonks who’d tell you they’re the same thing, superpositioned in the same bit of quantum memory. Maybe they’re right. ‘Cause lemme tell you, running into not one but two living legends of history? I’m definitely not sure if that’s good or bad, just a big damn mess.
I’d found us another skimmer, and we were already on our way. Twilight clung to the side, her mane fluttering, while Crenelle cruised alongside ready to catch any fire coming our way.
“Ahuizotl’s probably one of the most famous steelburners of the last half-century,” I was yelling over the rushing wind. “Cut a swath from the Yandarian Reach out to Tophet Sheni, grabbing anything that wasn’t hard-sealed down. They used to say that if Ahuizotl wanted it, the only thing stronger than that pull was a black hole!”
“What’s a steelburner?” Twilight howled.
Right. Translator patch might’ve gotten into her head, but slang was still patchy.
“A thief, a pirate, an outlaw - it’s kind of hard to explain specifically. They run hard, run fast, and run daring. No territory, but a big appetite. Anyway, maybe thirty or forty years back, word starts going around that he’s going to make a grab at the biggest of the big prizes, something that’ll put him a light-year ahead of every other ‘burner out there and no chance to catch up.”
“Us,” Twilight whispered. Actually, I kind of guessed she whispered, since her lips made the right movement. Couldn’t hear a damn thing.
“Yep. I’d lay a good bet, anyway. Well, everyone geared up for it - Zucchara actually worked on it back when she was fresh, ask her about it some time - but the thing is, poof!” I flung my hands apart, and Twilight flinched. “No more Ahuizotl. He vanishes without a trace. No treasure, no prize, no nothing. Just a big vacuum, and a bigger pile of leftover goodies for all of the rest to fight over.”
I could see circuits working in Twilight’s head. She was a fast processor, when life wasn’t slapping her ‘round the head every time she got her wits together.
“I follow you so far,” she said slowly, “but not why we’re going to this jail to see the one who - captured me.”
“We had her pinned as some tramp freighter captain who caught a stupid lucky break, maybe looking for a jump-route that wasn’t patrolled so she could smuggle what she wanted. But now - you’re telling me ‘just some freighter captain’ manages all this? I’m calling Lowroc-shit. She’s got some bigger stake in this. Crenelle, did anyone take a look-over of her ship?”
“Absolutely, Lieutenant-Investigator. Casting to your neurals.” A pang of motion-sickness hit my belly as the report filled my screen but the skimmer kept flying on fearless autopilot; I suppressed it quick enough to hear Crenelle keep talking: “...checked out, the starship itself has a few warnings but no major issues, and her cargo is all legal trade of common industrial and commercial hardware. The only thing that even came close was an out-of-date license on a reactor she was moving, but that would land her little more than a minor fine at worst.”
Yeah, right.
Reading this again, I could see all the little warning signs a rookie - or just lazy - agent wouldn’t. Her entire report sheet was too perfect for what she was supposed to be; a bit of a busted-up freighter, cargo with a flaw for an agent to write up, but nothing worth looking seriously at.
Normal for a tramp freighter. Perfectly normal. If Twilight hadn’t been there, that ship’d have passed any customs inspection in the galaxy.
I was hearing warning buzzers in my head, and it wasn’t ‘cause my implants were going bad. “I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with border authorities, Twilight, but all this makes me incredibly suspicious. So we’re going to have a nice happy little chat with her for a bit. You just follow my lead in there, Twilight, and we’ll be all fine.”
I’ll give the little gal some credit: The last time she’d been in this place, it’d been in the middle of a gunfight and she’d been losing her head over it. This time, she managed to swallow that tension down and keep at my heels. I could see the way she hugged her wings to herself, and Crenelle was picking up on it too from the way he fell back to trot at her side.
But Twilight? She sucked it up and kept it going.
Good gal, really. I was starting to respect her a bit more every hour.
Hell, some of the other Bureau boys scurrying around looked more shaken than Twilight. I got why - not everyday a dark ops team comes in your windows - but still.
I had to make a few outside calls - up a different chain of command than the bureau - to get Twilight back in the front door, but once we were through?
One of the upsides of being a full-on Lieutenant in a moment of panic: Absolutely nobody asks questions when you walk down to the deten block and want to chat with a prisoner. Better yet, they’d tossed her in one of the grav cells, an opening in the floor no more than a meter wide to the larger cell beyond. Convenient, since the cells also kind of muffled anything while the anti-grav barrier was in place. Nobody else listening in.
We gathered around the rim, peering down into the shadowy interior. “Oi. Itzcoatl. Wake up down there.”
Shadow shifted in the cell, an inky-black form uncoiling itself from the bed. Green eyes peered up, narrow and searching.
“What,” Itzcoatl called up, “do you want, ‘gator?”
“Twilight,” I asked instead, “is she kind of like what you saw back home?”
“Yeah,” she said, and Itzcoatl spun about to stare at her.
Itzcoatl’s voice was a sibilant hiss when she spoke again. “So. You took the inhibitor off. And figured out what she is, I reckon.”
Off-kilter. Good. Got to keep her like that, before she starts getting ahead of things. “Yep. Got the whole story out of her. Mighty big prize you stumbled onto, Itzcoatl. A prize we’re real eager to hang onto too.”
“Of course you are. You’d have to be an idiot not to, ‘gator,” she hissed back.
“So. You gonna explain how you found her, or do I have to go get the techs for a mindscrape?”
Itzcoatl threw back her head and laughed, showing the rows of serrated teeth nested in the Tlatoani’s mouth. Twilight flinched, and my suspicion she was right grew even stronger.
“Your bluff is a bad one, ‘gator,” Itzcoatl hissed, “I know you don’t have the permit for that. Even smuggling a biosynth won’t bring that, I know your pet pony won’t break Bureau regulations, and even at your rank - what are you? Sergeant-Investigator?
“Lieutenant,” I snapped.
“Lieutenant!” She pressed all three hands to her chest, a mocking salute in greeting. “I’m honored to have such an esteemed ‘gator questioning me. But they still won’t give you his override code.”
“Sure,” I said with a flippant grinned, “Crenelle can’t scrape you, and I can’t make him. But guess what? I’ve got a totally unregged biosynth right here, not a mandate or legal stop in sight. And Twilight really, really wants to go home.”
Itzcoatl hissed, recoiling back against the cell wall. “You didn’t limit its casting?! You idiot! They’re not neurobridled; do you have any idea what they’re capable of?”
“Nope!” I said cheerily. “And I don’t have to know. All I have to do is turn my back for a few minutes-”
“No.”
Damn it, Twilight.
I bit back the curse and looked at her. She stared back, just as hard. “No. I won’t do it. This place - it’s - everything that’s wrong seems to be normal here. It’s a world upside-down. But I won’t be part of it. Even after what she did to me, I’m not using that magic on her.”
Itzcoatl gave a hard, wheezing laugh. “Perhaps the little synthetic is more tamed than I thought, yes? Well, Lieutenant-Investigator. What will you do now?”
Well, all the respect I’d had for Twilight had just gone totally sour.
Time for plan B.
“Okay, you know what? How about I just take Twilight, go, and leave you here instead.”
“Leave me here?” Itzcoatl dropped back down, watching me carefully - the posture of one who senses a trap, but doesn’t see where it is yet.
I’d know. I’d found myself in the same position a few times. That little mess back on Madrat, heh…
Anyway.
“Yep. Now, I know your cell is pretty soundproofed until we shut the grav-field off, but I also know you couldn’t have missed the alarms howling earlier. Wanna guess what those were?”
She prowled in a circle, catlike, as I made my case. I’d seen that look before too - once with a wild voidwolf in a zoo, but more often in any number of bladeboys, razorwaifs, gangrinos, or any other kinds of less-than-bright types
“That was a dark ops team with the balls to hit the Bureau headquarters before anyone else could, and the gear to hold off security for fifteen minutes while they tore the place up looking for your prize. They didn’t find her, ‘cause I got her to cover. So, you don’t want to play? Then I go back to cover, wait for them to put together the same things I did, and come looking for you.”
Twilight snorted softly, pawing at the ground with a hoof - clearly unhappy about my proposal. Tough, horsie. I told you to stick to my plan in the first place.
“...they won’t hit the headquarters again,” Itzcoatl tried, but I shook my head. Not nearly enough confidence in that tone to buy it. Sorry, sweetheart.
“Y’know how big a deal this is. They’ll find a way to get in. Or get you out so they can just scoop you up. Then you’ll find yourself in a darker hole with someone who won’t wait for a warrant to do a mindscrape.”
She lashed her tail against the floor, hands flexing to grasp empty air, and hissed like a broken boiler. “What do you want?”
I grinned. Now we were getting somewhere. “You fried your main comp, wiped your jump logs when we took you in. I want to know how you found her, and how to get her back home.”
“You just said I fried them. How could I possibly do that?”
“Please. Let’s not play stupid; you wouldn’t erase the only key back to your prize.”
“I don’t need a way back. I had her,” Itzcoatl gestured to Twilight, “who was prize enough. I could sell her for a dozen fortunes already.”
“But not Ahuizotl,” Twilight said sharply, and I winced and cursed her for the second time in as many minutes.
Cursed, then paused. The change that had come over Itzcoatl was remarkable. She was utterly still, an obsidian statue caught paralyzed mid-stride. When she unfroze, it was one limb - even one joint - at a time.
“So. He made it there after all. Is he alive?”
“When you took me.”
The dextrous tail twitched, writhed, and snapped. Itzcoatl hissed between her many teeth. “Fine. But an exchange. I need to disappear. You get your lost synth and her world. I get my way out.”
Some sense of wrongness fell to the back of my head. I couldn’t quite place it, but… “That’s an awfully juicy prize you’re just giving up on, Itzcoatl.”
“I have no intention of spending the rest of my days in a cell, letting them comb over my brain until I go mad,” she hissed. “I’ve memorized the specifics. Take me to my ship and I’ll get you there.”
“Your ship has been remanded to Bureau holding until such time as the investigation is finished,” Crenelle rumbled.
Another pause, while Itzcoatl thought her way around the next secret we were prying out of her.
“There’s a hidden system on my ship,” she finally admitted, “a compu-crystal layer sandwiched into the structural ribs. It backs up everything. But you can’t get into it without me. Try it, and it slags itself.”
The look I got from Crenelle told me he was thinking just the same thing I was: Where does a smuggler captain, let alone a tramp freighter captain, get a ship built with that kind of custom sparklies in its bones?
Itzcoatl wasn’t everything she seemed to be.
Meanwhile, I guess Twilight had other thoughts. She was giving a supremely smug look down into the cell, probably the first time I’d seen her looking really happy since I’d first laid eyes on her. “I think you’re underestimating me. I learned crystal-shaping magic from the crystal ponies themselves. I don’t know what compu-crystal is, but I’d bet I can make a full copy of it.”
“Really now?”
Yeah, I wasn’t too fond of the way Itzcoatl was looking at Twilight. Too much hunger in that expression for me. “So, you get your ride out of here. No brainscrapes, no time-di cells. And we get Twilight to make a copy.”
“Do you have that kind of power, ‘gator? I’m still accused of a fairly major crime.”
“I can,” I said, ignoring the questioning look Crenelle gave me. “But first, we’re going to go take a look at your ship, just to make sure there’s no fun little surprises waiting for us along the way.”
I hadn’t actually seen Itzcoatl’s ride yet, but I had a fairly good idea. Twilight looked rather struck by it, and I gave Crenelle a moment to talk to her while I took a walk around the place. It was a pretty straightforward tramp hauler - a line of cargo bays set off a central axis, a little square-headed accommodation block up front, and a massive cluster of thrusters at the rear.
By now, I had a suspicion that if anyone actually took a good look at those thrusters, they’d be a whole lot more than the off-the-shelf standard they looked to be.
The cargo bays had been swept when the ship was taken in, so I didn’t bother with those. I was much more concerned with the cockpit - if there were any left-behind surprises, or if I could figure out what Itzcoatl’s real deal was.
Maybe it was a good thing Crenelle was taking a moment with Twilight. She wouldn’t know a palm infoslate from an illegal neurocracker, but Crenelle would and I didn’t favor having to try to explain the tech I was fishing out of my jacket. Stuff this high-grade didn’t just end up in the pockets of a Bureau man, even a lieutenant.
In some ways, having Twilight around was turning out to be a favor. Chatting with her kept him from seeing where I’d retrieved it from Zucchara’s place as well. Gotta admit, going around behind his back didn’t quite feel right. Biosynth or not, Crenelle was the kind of partner most Bureau people would die for. Sometimes literally.
Job’s a job, though, and I had mine.
I synched my neurals with the scanner and went to work on the cockpit before they could catch up. Most of it was a whole mess of packed-in electronics, too noisy for my scanner to pick up much distinct, but I wasn’t interested in that anyway.
What I was interested in, was the clear signature of an entire second computer net, well-concealed to most standard issue scanners but open to mine, nicely sandwiched into the structural frames to provide good cover. Powered off, it probably wouldn’t show up to the average police kit.
With the scanner’s results being projected into my eyesight, I could also see what I’d bet a good few credits were thermal charges packed in, ready to melt if someone got any fancy ideas about peeling the ship open.
But I had a Twilight, who said she could copy the compucrystal layering.
Crenelle’s neurals pinged me - he was coming aboard at last - and I stashed the scanner back away in my jacket. When the two of them caught up, it was a far, far less potent one I was running over the consoles and displays.
“...so I don’t know what your normal process is, Crenelle,” Twilight was saying, “but I want you and Guerro both to promise me: You’re not going to lie to Itzcoatl.”
“Your concern for her is surprising, given what she did to you,” Crenelle pointed out, but Twilight shook her head.
“Everypony has to be honest, Crenelle, or you’re not any better than the criminals you chase after. It’s important.”
I got a chuckle out of that. “Hey, Twilight - I know you mean right, but really - try saying that after you’ve pulled apart a Dendarian stim-smuggling gang. It’s not so clean and easy then.”
At a sharp look from her, I added, “But I do promise - she plays it straight with us, I’ll get her a nice and safe spot where she won’t be hunted. Honest.”
The look Crenelle shot me said I was going to have to answer questions from him sooner or later, but I had my own ideas about ‘right now’. “Anyway, Twilight - that crystal layer. It’s pretty well shielded from anything we’ve got, but I want to know if you - with whatever ‘crystal magic’ you were gabbing about - can see it. Feel it. I dunno. Give it a shot?”
“...I’ll try.” Her horn lit, eyes squeezing shut as its light grew until I barely needed the cockpit lights on. “It’s… kind of there, yeah. Hazy. Murky,” Twilight was saying, “but yes - there’s definitely some arcane. In like - the thick walls, separating this bit from the rest of the ship.”
“The structural ribs, yes,” Crenelle said, “that’s what Itzcoatl was-”
Naturally, that was when a black-clad figure stepped into the doorway and shot Crenelle right in the chest.
Twilight Sparkle’s first impression of the ‘ship’ in question was that someone had taken a number of foal’s toy blocks, glued them together while blindfolded, and then dragged the whole thing through a mud-patch.
Sure, the fat-bodied craft that drifted by above were far from the graceful airships that plied the skies near Canterlot. But this thing…
It was just plain ugly.
Crenelle dropped back as she paused near the ramp up. “Are you doing well, Twilight Sparkle? I do not think Lieutenant-Investigator Guerro remembered that you might have… less than positive memories of this craft.”
“Actually,” Twilight said, “I don’t even remember this thing at all. She had me - outside of myself while I was in it. It’s all new to me.”
“Ah.”
“It’s just - so ugly,” she said softly. “Nothing here is right.”
The inside of the vessel, when she trotted into it, was no less rough than the exterior. Hard metal clinked under her hooves, and caged-in lamps cast harsh light that rendered the corridors full of stark shadows.
“What will happen with this thing?” she asked.
“Ordinarily?” Crenelle shrugged with his wings. “Held until Itzcoatl is convicted, then sold off by the station’s government.”
“...so you sell off her ship if she’s ‘convicted’ - but whoever is running this place is allowed to hold slaves.” Sighing, Twilight shook her head. “What about now? What will happen to it now?”
“That depends on how much Itzcoatl cooperates with us,” he replied grimly.
“Will you give it back if she does cooperate with us?”
“If Lieutenant-Investigator Guerro can convince the Bureau to agree to her agreement, then that may be the case.”
“May be the case?” Twilight said, outrage creeping into her voice. “You can’t tell her one thing and then not give it to her! It’s dishonest!”
“I do not disagree with that, technically. But I do not control the ultimate outcome either.”
“Yeah,” she retorted back, “because you are owned by them.”
“That is not the reason.”
Twilight snorted at how calm and even his voice was. “It’s not the reason. Fine. I don’t understand a lot about how you do things here, so I don’t know what your normal process is, Crenelle. But I want you and Guerro both to promise me: You’re not going to lie to Itzcoatl.”
The stallion paused, turning his head to look back at her through one eye. “Your concern for her is surprising, given what she did to you.”
Shaking her head, Twilight pointed a hoof at her chest. “Everypony has to be honest, Crenelle, or you’re not any better than the criminals you chase after. It’s important.”
From somewhere up ahead, she heard Guerro laugh - casually, almost mockingly. “Hey, Twilight,” he said with some acerbity in his tone, “I know you mean right, but really - try saying that after you’ve pulled apart a Dendarian stim-smuggling gang. It’s not so clean and easy then.”
Twilight fixed him with her fiercest glare, and it seemed to get the point across. He raised a hand defensively. “But I do promise - she plays it straight with us, I’ll get her a nice and safe spot where she won’t be hunted. Honest.”
That’s about as much as I think I’m going to get from him. If he’s even being honest with me.
Instead, she looked around the small space they were in - the front of the ship, she guessed, and probably the control space judging by the sheer number of various panels festooned with buttons, levers, and tiny screens. Guerro himself had taken up residence in one of the two massive seats occupying the space, sitting awkwardly in something that didn’t look like it’d been built for his species.
“Anyway, Twilight - that crystal layer. It’s pretty well shielded from anything we’ve got, but I want to know if you - with whatever ‘crystal magic’ you were gabbing about - can see it. Feel it. I dunno. Give it a shot?” he asked.
“...I’ll try.” Letting her eyes slip shut, she reached out with her magic - vision being supplanted with the sixth sense of ponykind, the arcane sense, the quiet, harmonic hum that was not quite sound.
Something hummed back from all around her, tiny bits of spellwork encrusted into crystals throughout the dilapidated ship. The more she pressed against them, the more defined they became - but the largest cache of all was actually behind her. They were murky, hard to see, the crystals concealed somehow - but definitely there.
“It’s… kind of there, yeah. Hazy. Murky,” she said, “but yes - there’s definitely some arcane. In like - the thick walls, separating this bit from the rest of the ship.”
“The structural ribs, yes,” Crenelle said, “that’s what Itzcoatl was-”
Only because she had focused her senses did she feel the slight shift behind her. Her eyes opened, but only just in time for her ears to pin down as something filled the space with thunder.
Crenelle fell with a scream, his sandy coat already turning red. Guerro rose from his seat, arms splayed, but moved no further. And behind her, standing in the doorway-
It’s a pony.
Armored, horn to hoof. But it’s a pony.
Why?
“Do not move, officer,” the pony’s voice buzzed, synthetic and utterly devoid of any indication whether a mare or stallion stood before her. The only part of it she could even see was its wings and horn, both slate-gray. Another weapon, long and thin, floated in its magical grip.
Guerro didn’t, his eyes only flickering to where Crenelle lay on the floor, whimpering.
“Good,” the pony said, “don’t move. We’re just going to stay right here, understand? No quick moves, no casting, no fast actions, or I shoot your biosynth again, officer.”
“He’s already bleeding out,” Guerro hissed, but the pony just turned its face-mask - and weapon - in his direction. Twilight saw Guerro’s teeth grit, his fingers flex as if searching for something to grip - but still his body remained still,
“Come on,” he said instead, “he’s no use as a hostage if he dies right there! Let me give him first aid or something!”
“His fate is not my concern,” the pony said in its buzzing, monotone voice, “but if you move, he will die now.”
Guerro said something again, but Twilight did not hear it. Still listening for the harmonic hum of magics, she had found a new tone grating against her magical senses: A keening, high-pitched whine, like a violin string tightened until the point of snapping, coming from a knot of intense magic within the pony’s weapon.
The pony was just another slave. She would not hurt it.
The weapon had no such protection.
Her horn flared, and in that split second her magic reached out, seizing the weapon’s magical core, and snuffed it with a thought. The core burst under her magical grip, spellwork exploding like an overripe cherry.
“What-?” the pony had just enough time to ask, turning to its weapon in confusion, and then Twilight was on it.
Not to hurt, no. But her magic found its helmet, found the seam holding it in place, and pulled. The helmet came free -
Green eyes stared up at her, wide and unmoving. A mare - young, Twilight thought, and in shock.
“What are you?” she gasped.
“Somepony who knows crystal magic,” Twilight spat back. “And knows this, too.”
Her horn flared one more time, and the mare vanished in a flicker of violet - deposited well outside the building.
Behind her, Guerro crouched over Crenelle. A container's contents had been spread out over the cabin floor, and though their shapes were unfamiliar the purpose was clear - especially as Guerro’s blood-soaked hands were holding something to the stallion’s wounds.
“Will he-?” Twilight found her words cut off before they could finish. But speaking that final, terrible word proved unneeded, as Guerro shook his head.
“Got his shoulder,” he said, “Crenelle, you’re gonna need surgery. A good soak in a nanobath to get you fixed up, maybe. But you’ll knit. Probably even still be able to stay on the force.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” Crenelle hissed through gritted teeth, “but we have bigger issues. I have just been pinged by station security, Lieutenant. Four starships have broken off from regular traffic patterns and are heading straight for us, fast.”
“You're joking,” Guerro said, while Twilight simply cried out “Again?!”
“Twilight,” and she jumped as Guerro’s eyes were now boring into her, “I need you to do something for me. How far does that jump you can do go?”
“Far enough.”
“Far enough to get to Itzcoatl in her cell and bring her back here?”
How long had it been to get up here - ten minutes, twelve? Part of that was a ride in a traveling room, though, that brought us up. Call it fifteen if I was trotting…
“Yes, as long as she doesn’t touch my horn. But it’ll be tiring.”
“Do it,” Guerro said grimly.
Crenelle tried to sit up, gasped, and flopped back over. Instead he settled for glaring at Guerro through one eye. “Lieutenant-Investigator! You have considerable leeway in use of resources for your investigation, but removing a suspect from her cell without notice-”
“If they were smart enough to leave an agent on Itzcoatl’s ship, an agent who can cloak themselves against our sweep-teams and not be found, then they are smart enough to know her value,” Guerro snapped. “We leave her here, that’s it - whoever they are, they’ll get her. Twilight, do it!”
Twilight opened her senses and I feel the tower beneath me, reaching upward from its branch-like roots anchored to the surface of the station. I feel the the hard, fixed heaviness of the walls, and feel the hum of the veins of energy flowing through them. I feel the pipes and tubes of liquid and air, more than even Canterlot palace ever had. And I feel my way down, down into its heart, where we came up from. I feel the black void of the cell where I was being kept, hideous and hollow, but I’m not going there. I feel the other hall, the line of cells beneath it. Fourth cell from the end of the hallway. Open space. A risk - if I intersect Itzcoatl we’ll both be hurt. She didn’t seem to like to be near the walls, so I’ll aim there.
I feel the mass of the station as a whole, the curve of space where it weighs on the universe. I feel the bigger curves, sharp-edged and foreign, that can only be from where it imposes its own, unusual gravity. My magic pushes on space, and it all distorts like I’m seeing it through a lens until my magic can touch the cell, and I PUSH-
Violet light flared.
Twilight opened her eyes, her breath sharp and cold in her lungs.
Itzcoatl stared, tiny eyes open in an expression of unmitigated shock. Her mouth started to move, forming words.
Twilight closed her eyes and PUSHED-
The ship’s deck was hard and cold against Twilight’s coat. It took her a moment to realize why she was laying against it, and the understanding hit just a moment before the sudden and hard need to gasp for new, fresh, cool air in her lungs.
“Twilight!” cried Crenelle, which seemed weird because he had been shot, why was he worried about her?
“Just - give me a moment,” she said, heaving herself upright. “Teleporting isn’t easy, and this place is a mess of masses.”
“What is this?” Itzcoatl hissed, hunched over with her back pressed to the wall. Outside of the cells, she almost seemed to blend in with the dark colors of the ship’s interior, and the thought crossed Twilight’s mind that perhaps the dim lighting was less an accident and more camouflage.
“We’re out of time,” Guerro was saying, “there’s more skimmers with dark ops teams on the way. You need to get us powered up and moving right now!”
“I am not going to add ‘escape and resisting arrest’ to my record right in front of-”
“Just - I’ll deal with it; get us flying, now!”
Twilight’s ears barely twitched at the bickering; the craft’s controls might as well have been a foal’s scribblings for all she understood of them. Instead she heaved herself upright and lurched her way to Crenelle’s side. Something had been haphazardly pasted over his wound, a blob of some bright neon-green paste, and yet despite the red stickiness still clotting his coat, all Twilight could think to say was “...so, you were saying something about how I hadn’t gotten proper medical treatment?”
“...this is a perfectly reasonable application of field-expedient medipaste. It has already staunched my wound, and the nanotech within is working to prevent infect- ah.” He blinked at Twilight’s flat look, frowning. “My apologies. You are being facetious.”
“Good of you to notice,” Twilight quipped as she looked around. Her ears flattened at the overwhelming stench of coppery blood still polluting the air. “Can I do anything more?”
“If you would not mind, actually - there are small vials wrapped in green in there, with a pattern of triangles-”
“I see them.”
“Bring one here, please. Make sure it has the triangles, though, not the diamonds. Those are for species with copper-based blood.”
“What about this one?”
“Neural shunt. That would rapidly render me unconscious for a number of hours. Please do not use that.”
The ship lurched as she passed the vial into his magical grip; Twilight glanced around and saw both Itzcoatl and Guerro had seated themselves (awkwardly, in the latter’s case) into chairs.
Good. We’re going.
I just hope I know where.
When she looked back, Crenelle had emptied the vial into his neck and seemed to be breathing a touch easier; impulsively, she leaned in, nickered low, and gave him a quick nuzzle along the neck, ignoring the way her nostrils flared and something primal told her to run from the sharp, coppery scent of a pony's blood.
“Twilight?” Crenelle asked, and she drew back suddenly.
“Sorry, I - I don’t… this is all about me, right? You’re hurt because of me. Because they want me. I’m - I know it’s not my fault, but it’s still because of me.”
Crenelle opened his mouth to answer, but another shudder shot through the ship - this one violent enough to throw her onto her side, and accompanied by an effusive bout of swearing from both Guerro and Itzcoatl.
“Your Bureau ships are too slow to mobilize, ‘gator!” the latter hissed.
“Shut up,” Guerro shot back as another tremor shook them. Further back, something began to protest with a loud, grinding whine, “Twilight, Crenelle - turns out this rustbucket isn’t fast enough, and we’re taking fire. I think they’re trying to knock our engines out, match courses, and board.”
“What are your orders, Lieutenant-Investigator?” Crenelle asked, but Twilight was already feeling again - feeling, now that she knew what to look for, for the presence of the tiny knots of arcane power that filled them.
She found them hovering above, an outline of another vessel cast in outline by the web of lines running through its skin, tiny nuggets of synthetic magic nested in identical crystals. It swung lazily to follow their own vessel’s maneuvers; something flared, bright and actinic to her arcane vision, and another shudder ran beneath her hooves.
“Itzcoatl, there’s another two, trying to box us in from below!”
Guerro’s voice was distant, muted, drowned by the atonal disharmony of so many manufactured spellworks. But he wasn’t wrong - she could see them too, gleaming shadows of sharks cast by hard magelight.
I’m not a weapon.
I’m not a slave.
I’m not a tool to be wielded.
And I am not a killer.
But I can still choose to do this.
Twilight reached for the crystals and felt them the same way she had seen the Crystal Ponies spin their homes from raw material, and Twilight squeezed.
Something burst with a muffled thump, and the whining from the rear of the ship fell away as the unseen predator fell back, swinging and nearly tumbling. Its two fellows followed course, withdrawing to a safer distance.
She let her sense drop, came back to as Itzcoatl was muttering, “...retreating, I think, grav-snare’s let us go. We’re almost out of the station’s field. Skimmers aren’t vac-rated, they won’t follow us.”
“I’ll bet they’ve got other ships waiting. Get us to jump as soon as you can,” Guerro snapped.
Itzcoatl hissed, both arms and her tail working the controls. “This is not one of your ships, ‘gator! I am it's captain… but you are right. Let me clear the station, and we will go.”
The first time they went to ‘jump’, Twilight’s stomach did a hard flip and left her on her belly. Crenelle looked at her questioningly, and she swallowed back down the vomit threatening to advance up her throat. “Sorry. I’ve been teleported before, but never like that. It feels - wrong. Blunt. Too big.”
Guerro had laughed at that. “Now you know how I felt, the first time you jumped the two of us!”
The second ‘jump’ time, she merely swayed on her hooves. By the third, the experience only left her gasping. On the sixth, little more than a slight bout of nausea threatened.
“I would love,” she said softly, “to take a look at whatever machine you’re using to make that happen.”
“Not a chance!” Itzcoatl hissed, though there might have been something like a bit of a laugh in it. “Especially not when I am driving it so hard. I think I have made enough jumps, no pursuit now. But we do not know.”
“Fine,” Guerro said, rising from the awkward seat to slip back into the rear of the ship, “then we have a moment to talk about what we’re going to do here.”
“Yes,” Itzcoatl said, and Twilight’s head shot up at some unheard note in her voice. A weapon was already in her grip - two of them actually, one arm and a tail, while the last one gripped the seat she had risen from. “We do.”
“...impressive,” Guerro said, slowly turning back around. “I take it you had them stashed somewhere in the cockpit, hidden among the other systems?”
“You think right.”
“Itzcoatl-” Crenelle began, but she hissed sharply through pointed teeth to silence him.
“Do not try to stop me, puppet. You are a thing of the Bureau, and I cannot go back to a cell again.”
No.
Not this.
Not again.
“This is a dumb idea,” Guerro said.
“This is my only choice,” Itzcoatl snapped back. Outside of the light of the station, with the only illumination coming from the ship’s dim lamps and cold, distant stars, she truly did seem to be a thing of the shadows - barely visible in the dark, but for her eyes hovering amid a pool of black. “You spared me. This, I thank you for. I will see you to some planet safely. There is an emergency escape pod, planet-rated. But the prize is mine. Your weapon, ‘gator.”
“I’m telling you, Itzcoatl, don’t do this,” he said, but he slowly raised both hands in what Twilight took to be a position of surrender.
Itzcoatl loped to his side, a fast and sinuous motion, her claw running over his body. “Wait, where-?”
And Crenelle rolled over with a grunt, Guerro’s weapon hidden beneath his bulk. It rose up to be leveled at Itzcoatl, who hissed a wordless curse.
“Told you it was stupid,” Guerro snorted.
“How?!”
“I gave it to him when I was applying first aid. You were too busy flying. Figured you might pull something fast.”
“And what now?” One of Itzcoatl’s own weapons was jammed into Guerro’s chest, ivory teeth now showing in the dim light too as she snarled, “You cannot take this from me. I must have this. Will you trade your own life for this prize? Call off your biosynth, ‘gator!”
“Sit down, first. Y’know this is messier than just a smuggling case now. We can arrange something-”
“The first take is mine. Your superiors will never accept this!”
“Stop,” Twilight said softly. “Both of you.”
Three heads turned to her.
“Don’t try anything, Twilight,” Guerro said. “You can’t crush my weapon like you did that agent’s. It’s flayed matter. Let that loose in here, we’ll end up breathing jello or our bones will be made of felz-weevils. All of us.”
“I know. Chaos magic. You’ve somehow - you’ve weaponized chaos magic.” Twilight laughed, a hard and terrible laugh. “I don’t know if I should be impressed or horrified, because you can obviously use it and that violates about three things I know about Discord and his magic, but I know. I can’t break it. But I can talk.”
She paused.
No one fired.
She talked.
“I can talk, because I’m not a slave. I’m not a thing to sit back and watch you tear each other apart over me. I watched you kill three things without even flinching, Guerro. Itzcoatl, you put that thing on me that took me out of myself and kept me from even fighting back. I should hate both of you, but…”
She dropped to her haunches. “Look at you. You’re - you’ve built things I can barely understand. I have these words in my head, words like ‘grav net’ and ‘cybernetics’, and I don’t even know how I should know what they mean but somehow I know them anyway, because you put them into my head… You’re so powerful, but you argue like foals.”
“Don’t your ‘ponies’ too?” Crenelle said quietly.
“Yes!” Twilight nodded. “We’re not perfect. We screw up. I’ve screwed up! But we know this is wrong. We’re somehow ‘just tools’, ‘just meant to make planets’ for you - and you know what? We’re still getting along better than you.”
She looked between the three of them - Guerro, Tlatoani, biosy-
Pony.
He’s a pony.
“Don’t do this to each other,” she said softly. “Don’t. Crenelle’s the only one who might even come out of this alive, and he’s only doing this because Guerro ordered him to. I can’t make sense of all of your world - but don’t do this.”
Something hummed, steady and mechanical in the background.
Eyes flicked from face to face.
Guerro nodded first. “You could have taken Itzcoatl’s weapons out… but you chose not to. Alright. Crenelle, lower it.”
He did, without a question.
Three faces turned to Itzcoatl.
Her head snapped back and forth, teeth bared, one free hand working open and closed furiously. “I can’t. I can’t let this be. I have to be first-”
Twilight walked to her, eyes up, pace steady, horn unlit.
“What is it you really want, Itzcoatl?” she asked, “Because I’ve been thinking about you too. You could have come to any part of Equestria. Or even beyond! Griffons, dragons, changelings… you could have taken anycreature. But you came here to where we were, right then. It wasn’t even us, was it? We’re just a - a side prize. Not the ‘big prize’ you keep talking about.”
“I…”
Itzcoatl’s eyes flicked back and forth again, and Twilight lifted a hoof, then lowered it when the Tlatoani froze.
“You followed him in the first place, didn’t you?” she said. “Is Ahuizotl so important that killing someone else is worth it to get to him?”
“Yes,” she said softly, “he’s more important to me than you can imagine.”
“Then just take him and go! Maybe he’d even be better with you! Because as far as I know, he’s nothing but an insane thief who has been giving us trouble for-”
“He is my father!” Itzcoatl roared out, and in her wake silence followed.
“Oh,” Crenelle finally managed.
In shaking hands, she lowered her weapons, treading heavily to a wall. “Ahuizotl Weyi Tlatoani. He vanished when I was so, so young. I have spent decades pouring through his notes. Seeking what he found. I find him, and…”
She slumped down against the wall, suddenly seeming far heavier than her lithe and limber movements had suggested. “He is my father. And he is insane, yes. I saw that. His crew - those that followed them - they would not accept him now.”
“But why me?” Twilight asked.
“I thought - if I could bring back such a great prize as you, then I could restore his name and buy a quiet place for him. And what a prize you were! A thousand, thousand fortunes could not buy such a prize.” Itzcoatl’s tail rose to run its fingers back along her head. “I got greedy, carrying you back. I got hasty, and I got caught.”
I’m not just a prize for you to claim, was what Twilight wanted to say. Instead she said, “There’s always another way. You could work together.”
“She’s right,” Guerro added, “If it’s a quiet little spot for him to live in comfort, we can arrange that - if you cooperate.”
“And become the ‘gator’s dogs?” Itzcoatl laughed bitterly. “No. A new deal. I will take Ahuizotl. Twilight will go back. But you will get their location. Fair, yes? I lose half my prize, but you gain something for losing me.”
“And no one else would be able to find us?” Twilight asked softly.
“No one,” Itzcoatl sighed, “not soon. Ahuizotl ensured only he had the information leading to you. None would be able to steal his prize. In turn, I have his.”
“...fair.” Guerro admitted. “Fairer than a lot of deals I’ve cut. It is a deal, then?”
“Deal,” Itzcoatl said.
Then she looked to Twilight.
“Um,” Twilight added.
“You’re prepared this time, Twilight. You could stop us all if you wanted,” Crenelle said. “Even I couldn’t overpower you. You need to agree too, Twilight.”
“You won’t take any other ponies?”
Itzcoatl nodded.
“I promise,” Guerro said, and something - some tickle in the back of her head - said she could believe him.
Then she looked to Crenelle. “You have to agree too.”
“I do?” He blinked.
“Yes. Because it’s only fair. You’re not a tool, Crenelle. You’re not a slave. You have a part in this, and I won’t agree unless you do too.”
“You know what I want, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Do I?” She fixed him with a hard look, and Crenelle looked away. His tail swished and ears flicked.
When he looked back, his jaw was set and firm. “I know what you think, Twilight Sparkle. You think that because Lieutenant-Investigator Guerro agreed, I will do the same. An order without any words spoken.:
“Yes,” Twilight said bluntly.
“But that’s wrong. I agree with him, because I see the same things he does. I agree, the same way I agreed to join the Bureau. The same way I agreed to what I told you about in Zucchara’s home.”
Twilight paused.
”I can choose to do wrong, and because no override code compels me now they cannot stop me.”
“Okay,” she said.
We put the ship down at the edge of a small forest, far enough from any of the little settlements’ lights that Twilight insisted we wouldn’t be spotted.
Ship’s sensors didn’t pick anything up, so I watched her trot off into the forest. Still felt like I was going to regret what came next somehow, but - well, you win some, you lose some, y’know?
Had to admit, though. Beautiful planet. If Twilight’s kind was supposed to make Eden-worlds for us, they’d done a damn good job here. Had half a mind to pause for a day and just take in the scenery.
Like, I’d have to have half a mind to do that. There was still Itzcoatl to deal with.
“You sure you can find him?” I asked her once we’d hit orbit again.
“Without question,” she nodded. “Ahuizotl is still clinging to remnants of his own ship. I can track the trinkets he carries.”
“Good. Show me?” With a few flicks of her tail, she did - calling up and pinning a spot on the planetary map. Having three arms must be pretty handy for flying a ship. Dunno if I’d want it, though. It’d ruin my good looks.
“Interesting times ahead,” Itzcoatl muttered to herself, and I nodded.
“Interesting times. Speaking of which, how were you planning on getting Ahuizotl back? I assume there’s living quarters somewhere on this thing, though I didn’t get a good look.”
“In the back,” she nodded, “just above the reactor bay. A wretched arrangement, but passable.”
“Show me?”
I made sure to start off first, making sure I was in front of her. Grumbling, Itzcoatl rose from her seat to follow. Crenelle, limping, crawled into her place.
“Keep my ship steady, or I will be furious,” Itzcoatl grumbled, turning back to point an accusing finger at him.
I took the opportunity to club her over the back of the head.
“Lieutenant-Investigator!” Crenelle yelled.
It actually took another couple blows before she was down and limp enough for me to start dragging her down the main corridor.
“Why?” Itzcoatl moaned softly.
“Sorry,” I grunted as I pulled her along, and to my surprise I found I actually was. “Just business. Really. Can’t have you running off with knowledge of this; it’s too risky.”
“You lied! You promised Twilight-”
“I promised her you'd get Ahuizotl. And I promised neither of us would take anymore ponies. Both of those are still gonna be true. But - like you said. ‘Interesting times ahead’. Too interesting for the likes of me and the people I work for, if you bring word back. Thanks for mentioning the escape pod, by the way. It made this a lot easier.”
Then I slapped the neural shunt on her back, and Itzcuatl howled until it rendered her unconscious.
Getting her to the escape pod was easy. Strapping her in made me wish I had Crenelle with me, but I managed. Stepping in, I looked back one last time as I dialed in the location she had indicated on the map.
“Say ‘Hi’ to daddy for me,” I muttered and pulled the ejection handle. The hatch slammed down and the pod vanished with a soft ‘whump’. I watched it go until I couldn’t see it anymore.
“Is it done?” Crenelle asked when I climbed back into the cockpit.
“Yep,” I nodded. “You’re sure she left everything unlocked?”
“Yes. Itzcoatl may have been Ahuizotl’s child, but she lacked much of his instincts and cunning. The ship is ours.”
“Good. I’ll dial us a course.”
Neither of us spoke again until the jump took over, Equestria streaking away behind. In fact, neither of us really felt like speaking much for another couple jumps. Crenelle had something eating him - I could guess by the way his ears were up and twitching. Up close in the cramped cockpit, there wasn’t really much chance I could miss it.
“Alright, spill, Crenelle. What’s got you all twisted up?”
“There is one problem still, Lieutenant Investigator,” he murmured. “The Bureau will not just leave them alone once you file this report. The infamous Ahuizotl, his daughter, and these Biosynths as well? It does not matter what language we use. We cannot bring this information back to the Bureau if we want them to remain protected.”
“Right as usual, Crenelle.”
“I presume you have a plan?”
“Yes,” I said softly, “I do. Override code: ‘It is the eternal fate of the invariant ideologue that his words…’”
Crenelle sighed softly, a ripple running down his spine as he seemed to slump in his seat. “Master override code acknowledged; return phrase: ‘...should exceed his most fearful nightmares.’ I serve you.”
I let out a grunt, ignoring the pang that ran through my chest.
“What happens now?” he asked in a low voice.
“First: When I give the release code, you will go to sleep for no less than four hours, during which you will redact your memory of this entire investigation since you first spoke to Twilight Sparkle.”
“You can do that?”
“I can do a lot with that code,” I said bitterly. “It’s highest-level. Higher even than my supervisors at the bureau have. Administrator-level access.”
“I know. I felt it. How did you get it?”
“I’ve always had it.”
Golden eyes gleamed at me from the dark of the cockpit. “Always?”
“Always,” I said with a little nod. I reached out, my hand finding the back of Crenelle’s neck. A moment later, he leaned into it - his mane meshing with my fingers. “Next, reconstruct false memories - memories of finding a Tlatoani scam artist claiming to have an illegally-modified biosynth. Someone else took the bait and dared to raid the Bureau headquarters, but the investigation that followed revealed that it was all nothing but a fraud. The scam artist fled aboard her ship during the chaos. We followed. You were shot in the mayhem, and we got the ship, but she got away. Understand?”
I felt Crenelle nod, his neck shifting under my touch. But it was too sharp, too jerky to be calm. “I understand and obey.”
“Good. Give the memories a few days to a couple weeks to settle in and flesh out, and you’ll pass any diagnostic halo test.”
“Understood. Then, more softly: “Who are you?”
“Santana Guerro, Cravat Sector Investigation Bureau.”
“Who are you really, Santana Guerro who carries a flayed matter weapon, who can erase suspects, who holds my override code?”
Now it was my turn to grunt. “Union Counter-Intel. Been inserted with the Bureau for a good decade now.”
“Chasing spurned Senatresses and debt-ridden business owners?” Crenelle asked, his voice heavy with skepticism.
“Hey, you want to know the top reasons why people do stupid, stupid things?” I gave out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Debt and love. Turns out, knowing who’s screwing who or gambled too much is a prime source of intel. Always has been. Plus, I have access to the Bureau’s archives and casefiles now.”
“So when you said you’d seen a Counter-Intel biosynth make a jump-”
“It really was on the news,” I quickly cut in. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but we’re not usually out doing hard ops and kinetic takedowns. That’s the specialists’ job.”
“Ah… and Twilight Sparkle? What about her? The other - ponies?”
“I have to send a report to Union CI command. They need to know. I know what Itzcoatl said, but Ahuizotl found them once. Another could find them again. If there’s going to be a first contact, the Union is the best of the worst options. You know it too. But I think they’ll be happy to just leave them be. Old Earth Confederacy is long dead, and its legacy should be left behind too.”
“‘Interesting times ahead’,” he murmured, and I nodded.
“Yeah. ‘Raising the sun’... stellar engineering? Powers like that… too destabilizing to just bring them in. Better just let them have their world.”
Crenelle stiffened. “You were listening.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you know-”
“That you were lying to push her case my way? Actually, I had a hunch ever since I saw your hoofprints over the edits to the case assignment log.”
Crenelle tightened, giving a low and nervous whicker. My hand shifted, feeling the ridge of his spine beneath my palm. “Hey. I ain’t angry. I’m glad, in fact. You’re doing good by me.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant-Investigator.”
“But that isn’t it, is it? Talk to me, Crenelle,” I asked.
“I believe…” He halted, and I felt his tail lash against me. “...I believe I know how Twilight Sparkle felt. To - have everything you thought you understood ripped away and silenced.”
“Oh.” Shit, I hated being bad at all this talky-feely stuff.
“Leiutenant-Inv… Santana. Tell me one thing. Please. If I’m going to forget all of this anyway, answer this one question honestly?”
“Hit me,” I said, my own voice near a whisper.
“Is it real? My mate - my life - my choice to join the Bureau. If you can use that code to alter my memories-”
“Real,” I said, and even I was surprised by the firmness of my own voice. “All real. All you. This is the only time I’ve ever used that code. On anyone. I’m not making you a puppet to dance on my strings, Crenelle. You choosing to send this my way? That was all you. I didn’t put that suggestion into you.”
“Oh.”
A moment later, I felt him lean in against my side and nicker gently. “I believe you.”
“Thanks.”
We both stayed like that a while, watching the blue-green orb turn above us. It looked perfect - a fresh Eden, waiting to be uncovered again.
Eventually Crenelle said, “I’m ready.”
“Alright. And Crenelle? All the shit I give you, you’re still a good partner, a good friend, and - uh - a good pony. I’ll make sure you remember that.”
“Thank you, Santana,” he murmured.
“Release Override control. Memory restruct code: Absolute nihil,” I said, and felt Crenelle slump down and go limp against me.
Soon he began to snore.
With a sigh, I pulled up the ship’s computers and started making the appropriate redactions there. No rest for the wicked. Back to work.
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So... this has been a very interesting ride so far. I look forward to more.
Can’t have a space epic without imposters.
The organisation he worked with sounds pretty sus too, given that they seem to have a lot of information that (I think) was meant to have been lost during the war, if his knowledge about the drone terraforming programs and his actually being able to access Twilights neural system shows anything
Man, this story’s good. But, it’s got me itching for more. I mean we got a whole backstory and everything lined up but it ends so fast! But otherwise, very good.
The only thing I'd like to see is Twilight confronting Celestia and Luna. That would be the cherry on top!
Awesome story! Enjoyed it a lot!
I believe I speak for many when I say we need more of this world/universe you've created here. It just seems criminal to leave this untapped potential here with only this story.
11547187
That's fair; right before that Guerro mentions that Twilight's sleeping in his office's foyer, so I thought it was clear she's not in the cell anymore. (Keeping traumatized people in the location that traumatized them is a pretty bad idea, and Crenelle/Guerro know this.
In an earlier draft of this story, Crenelle's name was Cravat. I thought this had been changed in all locations, but it looks like one snuck by!
In this case, there's nothing missing. It's a (maybe a little too fanciful) way of saying "me, maybe a little more eagerly than he was shaking his head" (but with fewer words). Apparently it's more of a UK thing, so I can see why you might not be familiar with it.
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11548440
Glad to hear it. I'm going to have to think about how to continue this, clearly. 11547244 definitely hits on some of my thoughts on where to go, though in truth I'm surprised nobody's asked about Discord.
11546687
It is rather suspicious, isn't it?
I'd even say a fair bit of how this story is interpreted is dependent on how honest Guerro really is: Who did he actually get that information from? How much is he really being honest about the independence Biosynths have? Is his final answer to Crenelle on Equestria's fate truthful?
Absolutely amazing premise and I love stories that write ponies as more of a different species with its own mannerisms than just a human with a pony body. And the setting of her world being a life seeded colonization candidate with a mythological theme is wonderful alongside twilight's reactions to being considered property / a second class citizen.
Please continue this, adore it. All I can really think of to compare it to is Message in a Bottle, my favorite fic ever which we desperately need more like of.
Good one!
This was great but, really needed just another scene with Twilight handling the truth of her world.
11546687
Well, that scale of project tech probably hard to get under wrap. Biosynth probe as an alternative to a von Neumann's probe is a commonly appearing trope. Any history nerd would know it, but a commoner would not be interested. Today very few commoners know that Nazi Germany had a functional jet plane even though it's not a classified information.
There was mention that bits an pieces of old oroject were found. It may imply that at large it was a failure or considered so.
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In retrospect, I do see that this would definitely have been something I ought to have included. Ah, well! That'll just have to be the start of the sequel, should I ever get around to writing it!
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It's a bit of both: To some degree the exact mechanics of creating that pattern of biosynths has been lost to time and warfare. It could probably be rediscovered, but as Guerro said other events superseded the need to terraform planets like that... and he hints in a couple places that there are interests who have regulated against the creation of such independent and powerful biosynths as well.
11549633
"Pony mannerisms more than just a human in a pony body" is definitely one of the things I always try to include in my writing. I was lucky enough to meet someone in the fandom who actually owns horses and was able to give me lots of tips about equine body language and gestures. I really feel it helps distinguish them as different, especially in a story like this where they're contrasting against a human character.
Oh, now that's a fic I haven't thought of in a good long while!
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Thank you very much!
this is a fantastic hard-bitten sci-fi noir metaphor anecdote, i love it
love her
love smug and correct Twilight
love her
ooh, burn!
augh, love Twilight free to do Twilight things
love this description of how casting teleportation feels like!
ehehe great callback
ooh, love that this came back! and i share Twilight’s hard and terrible laugh here
so true (and on a metafictional level, the show itself is merely a tool to sell toys but instead it shows the possibilities of a better world than this?)
and what a beautiful way to close out Crenelle and Twilight’s relationship in this story
and oh wow! really did not see that twist coming, but there were just enough clues sprinkled into the worldbuilding and story to make it not surprising. fantastic stuff.
and whether or not this ending is a happy one really does depend on how much to trust Guerro’s assessment of the Union and its intentions, and considering his role as one of its enforcers, well… yes, these last moments with Crenelle were touching, but again in a way bound by the constraints of the Society that these two lived in. i get the feeling of a slaveowner that is one of the “kind” ones, but in the end, is still a slaveowner who sees his own Society as simply the natural order of things. that such an absolute power imbalance is carefully distributed and rarely used in this instance does not negate its unjustifiedness and horror.
and augh, the story illustrates so very well how such things are normalized, and how it takes the perspective of an outsider to the system to see it for what it is.
phenomenally crafted story that juxtaposes all of the innocence of Equestria with this larger and crueler universe that it finds itself in. it is such a tough balance to strike and i was in complete awe at how perfectly you struck it. i could not think of a single thing about Twilight’s reaction to this world as you rendered it that i could not call pitch-perfect, and i am very, very particular about this kind of thing. the torrent of exposition at the beginning made me uneasy at first, but looking back it is amazing how much got through without it being overwhelming, with the disorientation blending in seamlessly to the disorientation of Twilight’s perspective as she, like us, has to situate herself in this strange new world. and the pacing! not a scene wasted, and every one beautiful. that you juggle all of these aspects of the story so well…
honestly, this is one of the best stories i have read on this site so far, and by far the best of this genre. thank you so much for such a gift. it is truly an honor!
A bad boy, but perhaps only because the system enforced him so.
Only question is, did he remember the treasure black box? 😏
What gets me the most in this story is how Crenelle responds to physical affection.
It's cute and all, but knowing that it's probably programmed into him, it really calls into question the supposed freedom of biosynths. Crenelle seems happy enough, but is he even capable of rejecting his lot in life when he comes pre-installed with memory re-writing processes? Aauuggh.
Amazing work!
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And only now do I realize I never actually fully responded to this... Let me do so now, because this kind of feedback is the feedback authors dream of, and I think it deserves a response!
One of my rules for writing this fic is that while she starts out fearful and disoriented, I did not want her to remain a "damsel in distress" throughout. It wouldn't be enjoyable if this felt like a "beat up on the innocent ponies" story.
Thank you! Although I will admit it's inspired by other fics' descriptions as well.
One of the fun things about shorter fics: You can make callbacks work really well. (Also, I love snarky Twilight.)
This is definitely the dynamic I was going for. No overt cruelty or near-comedic villainy, but nonetheless the ponies in this society are still subservient and have little voice in it. It's both harder to condemn than an overtly brutal society, but also the imbalance can't be ignored.
I'm of the opinion that any kind of "human in Equestria" or "pony on Earth" (or "pony on space station") stories run on the juxtaposition of the worlds to some degree; I'm glad that the theme I used to highlight hat juxtapositioning came off so well.
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Perhaps!
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This is something of a common theme of my writing - I tend to write ponies as physically social and affectionate. In the context of this story, however... yes, I can see how it would be alarming - especially since Guerro sometimes seems to use it to keep Crenelle calm! It could definitely be seen as something used as a tool rather than just a cute quirk.
This is exactly the sort of story that tickles my neurons just right. The contrasting viewpoints, the secrets, the organic worldbuilding, it's all perfect. Definitely looking forward to more from you!
This was exquisite work. Some of the transitions were a bit janky—it's hard to tell exactly what the situation is when the smell of hayburgers tugs Twilight out of that fugue state until they get off the bus(?)—but overall this was a deeply engrossing setting. Gripping story, great characters, fascinating moral quandaries, and some A+ world building. Thank you for a great read. I'm glad I finally got around to it.
This is good stuff! I really like the terraforming lore.
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Thank you very much! That was honestly one of the nuggets in my head the story originally grew out of.
They gave Ahuizotl a backstory in Season 9, so this might need the Alt. Universe tag; then again, it's not a hugely important part of the show's lore, so perhaps not necessarily.
Either way, great story.