• Published 12th Jan 2012
  • 19,563 Views, 1,841 Comments

Days of Wasp and Spider - Luna-tic Scientist



No humans. In Equestria's past, ponies exist only to serve their creators. One such pony is accidentally released from her mental chains, but how can one mare save herself and her people if she doesn't even know she's a slave?

  • ...
31
 1,841
 19,563

24 - A Dark and Angry Goddess Arises

Days of Wasp and Spider
by Luna-tic Scientist

=== Chapter 24 (remastered): A Dark and Angry Goddess Arises ===
With apologies to Stephen R. Donaldson.


Out of the corner of one eye, Gravity spotted the gryphon staggering upright, reaching for his gun with one foreleg, the other hanging limp. She redoubled her fight against the young stallion's telekinetic field, trying to break his magic without hurting him. The window of time available to her was slamming shut, so she threw caution to the wind and reached out for that sensation of cold mass, somewhere high above the surface of the planet.

It was like it was waiting for her. The connection snapped open almost without her asking, like some finely balanced mechanism that could be set into motion at a hair's touch, and the power surged through her with the full force of a hurricane. With an instant of thought, a wall of violet light sprang into being between the two ponies and the gryphon, catching the burst of fire from his gun. The mare felt the shots, felt the slight effort it took to keep the field from collapsing, but it was almost nothing. That should have driven me to my knees, she thought, marvelling at her new strength, then turned her attention to Lilac.

I'm sorry, I don't have time to be gentle, she thought, looking into his bulging eyes. He was putting everything he had into holding her still, but it wouldn't be enough. She reached out with a fraction of her power and smothered his magic; the struggle was brief and he collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Behind her, the force field crackled as the gryphon put another burst into it, with just as little effect as the first time. Even the sound was deadened, the whip-snap cracks of high velocity ammunition reduced to the dull thump of a hammer on stone.

She ignored him, dropping instead into shadow sight and searching for her sister. There... that characteristic white-gold hue, although it was very faint, as if she was near death. A chill ran through Gravity and she nearly cried out. I can't be too late, I can't, she thought, calling on her power once more. I wish they'd taken me first; at least Fusion has had time to plan for this. The mare's breath hitched. I'm going to have to hurt or kill some Masters. The thought was terrifying, and her resolve started to weaken.

Something crystalline flickered inside Gravity's head, and all her fear and panic suddenly blossomed into a white hot rage. Any plans she may have been making dissolved in that maelstrom of fury, and she screamed, lashing out with her magic and punching upwards with all of her might. With an appallingly loud sound the reinforced concrete over her head abruptly dished inwards, a spider's web of cracks radiating out from the centre. Fine plumes of dust sifted down from the damaged roof, but the structure held.

She struck upwards again, making the whole room groan as the metal reinforcing bars inside the roof gave way. Jagged lumps of concrete, some larger than her own head, rained down on Gravity, only to be caught by her telekinesis and shunted abruptly to one side. Somewhere up inside the mass of fractured stone a cable fizzed and sparked, dropping the lab into darkness, quickly followed by a cascade of water from damaged pipe work.

The sudden cold shower cooled Gravity's anger a little, the rage subsiding just enough so she could think. Snorting to clear her nose of water, she pushed Lilac to the back of one of the pony sized alcoves, out of the way of any more debris. A glance towards the lab entrance showed that the gryphon had retreated, so she reached out to slam the door, crushing the frame to stop it from being opened in a hurry. Collapsing her original force field, the mare picked up Lilac, moving him to the far end of the room.

In the sudden quiet she could hear the warble of a distant alarm over the sound of falling water. I'm coming Fusion, she thought, hold on. Gravity looked upwards, past the artificial rain and into the ragged hole she'd created, taking a moment to line herself up with the dim glow of her sister. At the sight of that flickering light her anger flipped from hot to cold; the rage no longer blinding, but full of calculation.

The perfect planes of force fields flickered briefly, shearing off the jagged spikes of stone and metal that her brute force approach had left around the perimeter of the hole. Above her was one of the intrafloor levels, packed with ducting and narrow maintenance ways, that serviced the various laboratory and office spaces above and below. Satisfied that there was enough room, Gravity jumped into the air and hovered level with the new floor.

More force fields sliced stone and metal, while her telekinesis pulled great angular boulders from the next floor up, just as if she'd suddenly acquired a set of giant clawed appendages able to rend the toughest materials. The lack of light wasn't a problem; the flare and pulse of her horn lit the darkness a hard violet, tinted with unexpected greens and reds where plastics fluoresced under the short wavelength light.

Flying higher, Gravity started to get nervous. This floor was full of places that could hide a gryphon or military Master; every dark opening in the damaged machinery seemed pregnant with the promise of something that would try and stop her, while the hole beneath her was only protected by the flimsy door to the animal house. It was the matter of moments to pack the accumulated debris into a conical mound plugging the hole, then she redirected her telekinesis out sideways into the maintenance floor.

Metal shrieked and plastic snapped with a fusillade of miniature gunshots, as ductwork, pipes, cables and bulky ventilation equipment was packed into a tangled, impenetrable mass. Satisfied, she smashed her way into the next floor, and the next, and the next. If there were any Masters present in any of the areas she broke through, she never saw them.

===

Gunnulf's autogun spun a cluster of aim points within the simple close quarters battle reticule that filled his visor. They twitched and swirled, hovering over parts of the blue pony's body, moving away when the thaumokinetic guidance system in the muzzle successfully placed a round on a designated point, then back again when the tactical computer realised that the target was still standing. Five hundred rounds, the standard 'Ripper' load of smart fuzed exploders and hypersonic armour busters, any one of which should have gutted the pony from throat to tail root.

Every single shot shattered or detonated on that immaterial wall, the only response a stroboscopic flicker of violet.

Gunnulf hobbled backwards, keeping his useless gun trained on the pony. His beak was clamped down on the bite trigger, even though the ammunition counter read zero. Ear plugs or no, the sound had been deafening, but the pony didn't even seem to notice. For an instant he'd considered trying to push past the field like he'd been trained, but then she had glanced at him, the brief flicker of attention you might give to someone you passed in the corridor. It was that complete lack of concern, more than anything else, that had convinced him that this was a lost cause. The wall of pale light remained unchanged, as perfect as the instant it had been created.

His injured foreclaw touched the ground and a queasy grinding sensation, like he was walking on pebbles, resonated through the bone. Suddenly feeling ill, Gunnulf snatched up his foreleg, holding it protectively against his chest. Blasted combat drugs, he thought, I'll have to watch that. There was no pain at all, and therein lie the danger. Put too much weight on the bone and the broken ends could slide apart completely, pushing jagged splinters through arteries and the like.

Letting go of the bite trigger with a practiced flick that sent the gun back over his shoulder and down to its home position, Gunnulf half loped, half flew, back out of the door to the Animal House. He'd just cleared the door when the first shockwave hit. Something enormously powerful struck the ceiling inside the lab, hard enough to crack the concrete slab above his head. Gunnulf froze, mesmerised by a thin line of dust trickling down out of the split. The second shock nearly knocked him off his paws and he stumbled, smacking one wing elbow against the wall.

Eyes wide he hesitated, then crouched down to floor level and carefully poked his head around the door jamb. What he saw through the violet haze of the force field made him whimper; large lumps of metal and rock were raining down on the pony, but she was effortlessly catching them and pushing them to one side. I knew they were strong, but this... he thought. Light blazed around Gravity, little flares and sparkles of violet and pure, magnesium white randomly condensing out of the air. Even her eyes glowed, the big blue-green irises completely subsumed as if someone had lit a phosphorus flare in her skull.

This is no panic reaction like when she charged me, this is active rebellion. Her conditioning has completely failed. The pony, head upraised and scanning the ceiling for... She's going to smash her way straight to the medical lab.

He pulled his head back and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. It's a rescue mission. She's going to get her friend. Gunnulf swallowed heavily. She'll kill them all. A second later he jumped violently as the door to the Animal House was slammed shut, violet light flaring around its rim, accompanied by the squeal of metal distorting as the frame crumpled and warped. Gunnulf swore softly as he followed the chain of logic to the link that really mattered.

If Salrath dies, what happens to me?

A terrible wave of fatigue rolled over him, and for the first time Gunnulf became aware of something wet running down the inside of his armour suit. Lifting his uninjured foreclaw, he stared dumbly at the drip-drip of blood from the elasticated cuff encircling his scaly wrist. A sudden flash of memory -- a crystal spike half the length of his leg cutting a line of agony through the muscles of his shoulder -- and he took a deep, shuddering breath. How badly did she get me? Gunnulf fought back the urge to remove the armour set and check, knowing full well that the under suit might be the only thing stopping him from bleeding out.

Gunnulf limped away from the room leaving a red trail behind him. Struggling with his command collar, he opened a communications line to the Agent, only to get no answer. He was just cursing his lack of a clear chain of command -- he had no idea who else to contact -- when his visor display blanked, all the combat graphics replaced with a priority incoming call.

"Flysoldat Gunnulf, where is Agent Salrath?"

The voice and accompanying thumbnail video wasn't from any of the People he recognised, a nondescript individual with a smooth, even voice. His comms unit knew him though, putting a helpful caption under the image. Who the hell is 'Sector Chief Orgon?' he thought, vague memories of the Security org table nagging at his mind.

This is Salrath's boss' boss, he thought, a sudden flush of adrenalin washing away his blood-loss induced fatigue. If he doesn't approve of her actions, I'm going straight back to prison. Orgon narrowed his eyes at Gunnulf's failure to answer promptly, and the gryphon hastily replied. "Sector Chief, I believe that Salrath is in one of the medical labs with servitor Fusion Pulse. She ordered me to guard the other servitor, Gravity Resonance." More dust started to drift down from the ceiling and the floor started to shiver. An unnatural grinding, howling cry echoed up the corridor behind him. Gunnulf put on an extra burst of speed.

"Why is the gryphon not with his prisoner?"

A sense of unreality flooded Gunnulf and he giggled. "She broke my foreleg and stabbed me in the shoulder. I've got no ammunition left." A band of agony contracted around his throat, feathers singed and miniature lightning flashed. Gunnulf staggered, slipping on the blood pooling under his paws.

"Answer the question, soldier!"

Fumbling with one red-stained claw, Gunnulf tapped the sequence that switched his comms from throat to external microphone. "You hear that, Sector Chief? That's the sound of your prisoner going to kill Salrath. Just follow the trail of destruction; they'll both be at the end of it." A particularly loud squeal filled the air, some primary support being stressed far beyond its design limits. He looked back in the direction he'd come, seeing the ever increasing blood trail. "Stupid drugs, I think I'm bleeding out," he said, struggling to get to his paws, but slipping and falling back to the floor.

The figure in the little video window continued to shout and his collar flared again, but something must have gone wrong because he couldn't seem to catch the words or feel the shocks. "I think I'll just rest here for a second," he mumbled, closing his eyes as the darkness rose up and swallowed him.

===

Korn felt the second shiver run though the floor and reached forward to expand the inset camera window. The screen was completely black, the diagnostics reporting that the network could no longer reach the machine at the other end. That light, he thought, it was the same colour as the servitor's magic.

Panic welled up inside him as he remembered what Fusion had looked like during those last instants of the accelerator experiment -- she'd had that same, almost ethereal quality to her mane and tail.

The revelation hit Korn like a lightning bolt, the whole awful situation illuminated in a single flash. His mouth flopped open and he tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. How it had happened he didn't know, but the conclusions were obvious. It's true, really true, he thought. The pony isn't Blessed, and she's managed to free her sister. That last thought froze in his head, and his eyes went back to the dead video feed. She's coming to find Fusion. His eyes widened and he moaned quietly. What will she do if the machine has started its work?

Suddenly desperate, he jumped out of his chair and ran towards the autosurgeon, eyes fixed on the emergency stop button. He got about halfway there before being tackled by Salrath. The Agent tripped Korn, sending him flying into the instrument panel. He struggled to get to his paws, but by then Salrath had her knees on his back and one set of claws wrapped around his throat.

"Salrath has got Korn now. She knew that you were covering for the servitor," the Agent hissed joyfully in Korn's ear, so close that he could feel her whiskers move in time with her words. "He will be spending the next gigasecond in a Security prison. This one doubts he will last that long."

Salrath leaned down on him with all her weight, grinding his muzzle into the hard floor. He tried to fight her off, but she just tightened her grip and used her free paw to capture his flailing arms and twist them high up behind his back. Releasing Korn's throat, she used that paw to fish a set of restraints from her equipment vest, fastening them about his wrists with practiced ease.

"We must turn the machine off," Korn said, finally able to talk. He tried to inject as much urgency into his voice as possible, but Salrath just laughed. Korn could feel the floor vibrating now, not the isolated impacts of before, but steady pounding, just like one of the big tunnel boring machines. The source was getting closer; even over the triphammer beating of his heart he was starting to hear the high pitched grinding wail of metal and concrete being ripped and smashed. His imagination filled in the blanks, seeing the servitor burst though the floor, only to think its sibling was already dead. There hadn't been a free pony since those early genetic engineering problems, back before the Blessing was developed. There was no telling what the creature would do under these circumstances.

Korn knew that if their situations had been reversed, he would not be merciful.

The steady vibration abruptly stopped, and Korn dared to hope that something had intercepted the servitor -- perhaps it had run afoul of some bit of dangerous machinery, or the Institute's security team had caught up with it. He giggled hysterically at the thought of a minimum wage rent-a-guard trying to stop an out of control pony; even without the special training this one had received, the creatures were so powerful that they would probably never find all the bits.

Preoccupied by his own woes, Korn nearly didn't notice what happened next. Less than a paw's width behind Salrath's leg a blade of violet light licked up out of the concrete, accompanied by a bell-like tone. An instant later it vanished and reappeared a little further away, leaving a hair-fine groove in the floor. This happened another dozen times, then the force field started to do same thing at ninety degrees to the first set of cuts, marking out a large square grid. All of this happened in less than half a second, the pure tones coming so fast that it sounded like the warble of an alarm.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Salrath jumped slightly at the noise, and was just starting to turn, one paw reaching for her firearm, when the floor under the grid glowed an intense violet and was sucked downwards at tremendous speed. Up through the hole jumped the blue servitor, wings flaring as it fought to hover in this relatively small space, surrounded by hundreds of pieces of razor edged concrete. It was like watching an explosion in slow motion; he kept expecting the rocks to follow ballistic arcs, but they just stayed there, held fast by the pony's magic.

What Korn had seen at the accelerator was nothing compared to being in the same room as the creature. She literally glowed as if lit from within, the same sourceless, deep blue light that surrounded high level nuclear waste at the bottom of a cooling pond. Her mane and tail streamed backwards in an unfelt wind, the colour of a methanol fire flecked with burning magnesium dust. A tingling wave swept over Korn, all his fur standing on end.

Any fear he felt of the Agent vanished, swept away by his awe at this sight. There was a pressure emanating from the pony, like a gentle breeze that he could feel even where the Agent was in the way. Pebbles and fragments of concrete skittered and rolled across the floor, propelled by the same force.

Salrath completed her turn, paw coming up with a compact pistol, her finger already tightening on the trigger. The gun went to full auto even before it was on target.

===

Gravity already knew what the inside of the surgical suite looked like, but continued to study it, even as she smashed through the last few floors. In shadow sight the room was a high ceilinged rectangle, but although the walls were dark and vague, the rest of the chamber was picked out by the multitude of magically active crystals filling the machinery around its perimeter. At one edge were two bipedal silhouettes, only really noticeable because of the few crystal-using gadgets they wore. In the middle was another figure, this one outlined in light from the array of equipment it carried, pacing near the shape of her sister.

That sight nearly made Gravity lose control again; in her shadowed magical view the autosurgeon was ablaze with light, a funnel-shaped maw lined with concentric rows of teeth that flickered and pulsed, seeming to blur and rotate like the mouth of an industrial grinder. Fusion was head and shoulders inside the throat, halfway through being swallowed by some deep sea monster while its feeding tentacles probed her head.

As she cut through the floor below and brought up the spells she'd need, the Agent -- it must be her, no one else would carry so much stuff -- intercepted one of the other figures, who'd picked that moment to run at the autosurgeon. The Agent brought the other figure to the ground and there was a brief struggle. A distraction, perfect, Gravity thought, then sliced the concrete above her head into a grid of hoof-sized cubes.

Holding the roof in place until the pattern was complete, she pulled it down and out of the way while springing through the resulting gap, dragging the stone and metal cubes up after her like attendant asteroids circling a planet. The whole complex manoeuvre flowed like it was choreographed; Fusion's talent was raw energy, but hers was the movement of physical objects, and she was very, very good at it.

The cloud of rock moved like it had a mind, like each cube was alive and was anticipating her desires, parting to let her through and avoid her short wingstrokes, before fountaining up through the hole to surround her. She came up facing the struggling pair, the uppermost figure just producing a small weapon from some concealed holster and bringing it up to face her. It was trivial to generate a zone of force that would give any projectiles enough of a kick to miss her; in her heightened state, Gravity could feel the bullets -- like tiny, invisibly fast insects -- as the gun fired.

The mare gave one of her swarm a push, slamming it against Salrath's chest and flinging her back into the wall. The little pistol went flying; without thinking, Gravity picked it up and added it to her orbiting flock. The high-pitched whine of a miniature power saw flashed a horrible vision through her mind, and she whipped around to face the machine, reaching out to freeze the robot arms as they made small, delicate movements near Fusion's head. Leaning closer her heart nearly stopped; the machine was very clean, but there was no way it could capture all the blood.

Gravity gently reached out and released the clamps holding on to Fusion's flesh, pushing the flap of shaved skin back over the stark white of exposed bone and wiping at the runnels of blood where they had trickled down her sister's muzzle. For an instant she had a vision of the scars on the side of Lilac's head, and the rage and tears nearly blinded her.

===

Salrath's eyes flicked open and she gasped, pain shooting up her back as she tried to move. She was lying at the base of an instrument panel, staring up at the rear end of the blue servitor as the creature did something with its kin in the autosurgeon. The whole room was lit a lurid, shifting violet from the scores of floating rocks that drifted around the pony.

Taking a chance, she fumbled for her comms bracer, tapping the send key with her own emergency signal. A slight pulsing tingle came as the reply, her communicator entering covert mode as it sent its electronic cry for help. Salrath angled her wrist slightly, adjusting the view of the wide angle camera. No escape now, pony, she thought with glee, this one will see you dead before the day is out. An 'agent down' emergency beacon was always given the highest priority; even now there would be Security teams scrambling from the Pit. Kept on constant stand-by and with the fastest vehicles available, she could expect help within the next kilosecond.

But a kilosecond is a long time in a firefight, she thought, mind going back to her immediate predicament. Salrath cautiously moved her legs; abused muscles drove great jagged splinters of pain into her torso from where she'd struck the edge of the instrument panel, but everything seemed to be working. Sending a silent prayer of thanks to whoever had designed her armour vest, the Agent rolled over and rose to a shaky crouch. A glance over her shoulder at the servitor -- still preoccupied with what had been done to its kin -- then she took a chance and ran for the exit.

She'd just hooked one set of claws around the door jamb, when what felt like a steel-cored silicone tentacle coiled around her legs and pulled her off her paws. Only saved from hitting the ground by her grip on the door frame, Salrath saw the violet glow of the servitor's telekinesis crawling up her thighs and strained to pull herself through the door. She may as well have been trying to hold back a tank; her claws ripped grooves from the plastic frame and she was dragged helplessly backwards into the room.

A giant's fist wrapped around her chest and she was jerked upright to float just outside the cloud of concrete cubes that still surrounded the blue pony. Her armour vest creaked and started to buckle, the air wheezing out of her lungs. Salrath stopped struggling and gritted her teeth, glaring her hatred back at the servitor. She tried to curse the creature, but didn't have enough breath to spare.

The servitor's head snapped around to stare at her. "What have you done to my sister?" she growled, her voice thick and distorted with anger.

The force around Salrath's chest lessened enough that she could draw a pained breath. "Put Salrath down at once, servitor!" she snapped out in her best drill sergeant's impression. For an instant, the band of telekinesis disappeared and she fell, but only for a moment, then the grip came back at full strength and she was slammed backwards into the wall, teeth clicking shut on the end of her tongue.

She spat something red from her mouth and grinned bloodily at the pony. "This pony's sister is dead and, if it doesn't release Salrath immediately, its family will follow it."

"Liar, she still breathes!" the servitor screamed in her face. "What have you done to her?"

Salrath laughed, and the servitor screamed with frustrated fury, repeatedly slamming her back into the wall. The first impact knocked the wind out of her again and she went silent, but the battering continued. She lost the strength to keep her limbs from flopping about, and on the next collision something snapped in her shoulder.

Brilliant pain flared down her arm, but the servitor didn't stop and Salrath realised she might have made a mistake in goading it. The battering continued and she tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. More bones broke, more daggers of pain stabbed through arms and legs, and the Agent focused all her fragmenting will on keeping her muzzle forward and tucked into her chest.

On the next impact, the back of Salrath's head struck the wall and the world blinked out.

===

Gravity felt the Agent go limp in her grasp and the blinding rage faded, replaced by desperation. She dropped the Master, cringing at the sight of her broken body and the smear of blood it had left on the wall. "What have I done?" she whispered. Too late she remembered what her sister had tried to tell her about the thing that had given her the new magical techniques.

'I have memories that aren't mine,' she'd said. What if the thing that gave Fusion her new powers could do other things as well? If it could change a pony's memories, how much easier would it be to make them angry? Gravity remembered the panic and despair she'd felt when the video monitor had come alive, and how she'd become so insanely angry, all at once.

It wanted me angry, she thought, wanted me to do something terrible. Well it succeeded; it's made me into a monster. Gravity looked back at Fusion's silent body on the surgical table, then down at the two remaining Masters. Something froze inside her chest and she came to a decision. "Then a monster I will be; I'm in good company, after all," she murmured, staring hard at the Academician, who shrank backwards slightly. "You, what have you done to my sister?" she said, enveloping Vanca in a haze of magic and pulling her out from where she cowered under one of the consoles.

Vanca gasped, but remained silent, eyes wide and staring at Gravity. The mare's ears folded back and she gave the Master a hard shake. "Answer me!"

Vanca just gazed back, mouth opening and shutting, then coughed. "It's a muscle relaxant, disconnects the v-voluntary muscles and the nerve bundle that goes to the horn," she said, voice strained. "There's an antidote--"

Gravity gave the Academician a squeeze. "Show me!"

"There, cupboard," she said, hissing in pain, then stumbled as Gravity dropped her to the floor and shoved her towards the wall. Vanca trotted to the glass-fronted storage unit and pulled out an injector gun and several vials of clear liquid, holding them out for inspection.

Gravity pulled them out of Vanca's grasp and stared at them; like Fusion she couldn't read the Master's script, so the tiny writing was meaningless to her. The same wasn't true of the hazchem symbols. She fitted one of the vials into the gun and primed it with a fresh needle.

"What is in this drug that requires a poison symbol?" she said, holding Vanca still and sliding the needle into the flesh of the Academician's arm.

"T-the warnings are for the People, we have different metabolisms and the drug is harmful to us," Vanca babbled, staring down at the injector.

Gravity relaxed slightly. It could be true, she thought, why bother with us when only the Masters will be using this stuff? She flipped the gun around and thrust it back in the Academician's paws. "Do it," she said, "and we will leave you in peace -- but if my sister dies I will not run away, instead I will kill every one of the People I can reach." She leaned forward until she was muzzle tip to muzzle tip with Vanca. "And I have a very long reach." Her voice trembled as she spoke, but the threat seemed to have the desired effect.

Vanca's fingers clumsily worked the injector, swapping to a clean needle, while she walked to the autosurgeon. Standing next to the prone body of Fusion, she laid a trembling paw on the pony's throat, spreading the fur and looking for the big jugular vein.

Gravity watched the Master intently, narrowing her eyes as Fusion's breathing quickened to a frantic panting. Vanca pushed the needle home and doubt started to well up inside her, the mare realising that she'd trusted the Master almost without thinking. I threatened her, but does she really believe it -- especially when I don't believe it myself? Her magic started to reach out, then Gravity hesitated, paralysed by indecision.

"Stop!"

The shout came from the bound Master. Reflexively, Gravity grabbed hold of Vanca's paw, freezing her stubby digits where they were poised over the trigger.

"There is no antidote, the pony will recover naturally."

Gravity carefully pulled the needle out of Fusion's neck, holding back her anger until Vanca had been dragged away from the autosurgeon. "What is Korn saying, that's not tru--" the Academician broke off with a squeak as the telekinetic grip on her forearm tightened convulsively. Gravity held Vanca still while pulling the other Master up from where he was seated against the wall.

I know this one, this is Student Korn, Gravity thought. He's the one who brought Fusion back that first night. He did seem genuinely concerned for her. And why is he tied up?

Korn cleared his throat and spoke in a high, nervous voice. "Vanca doesn't handle physical threats very well. Korn thinks she's made a mistake because of the stress. If you untie this one, he will help your sister."

The mare pulled Vanca around, dangling the Master off the ground by her arm, then lifted Korn to float next to her. "Explain," she growled to both of them.

"N-neuotransmitter booster," Vanca stammered, giving Korn a pleading look, "to counteract the targeted acetylcholine esterase inhibitor."

"Too dangerous, not designed for this job." Korn said, gasping when Gravity gave him a squeeze. "Might cause permanent nerve damage. Better to use the surgeon."

Gravity spun Korn around and snapped the plastic straps holding his wrists together. He gave a sharp yelp of pain, then massaged his arms to get the blood flowing again. The mare propelled him over the hole in the floor and dropped him next to the autosurgeon. "No more mistakes," she said, pulling Vanca forward and holding out her arm. The violet haze, extending from wrist to elbow, abruptly intensified.

There was a snap and the Master screamed, collapsing to the floor when Gravity released her hold. Something cowered and begged deep inside her mind, horrified at what she'd just done. Master, forgive, I didn't mean-- She squashed the thought, keeping her expression savage.

"The pony can't--" Korn stopped himself, then took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "Korn saw what the Agent did to your sister, the pony has every right to be angry, but hurting us will only make things worse for you."

Gravity glared at Korn. What else has Salrath done? She thought back to the way Fusion had acted at the aid station back at the accelerator. Her eye. Gravity's ears drooped and her vision started to swim with unshed tears. All she wanted me to do was listen, and I couldn't even do that. The mare shook her head angrily. "Worse? How much worse could things get? I've seen what happens to those you think are bad ponies, even when they had no choice." Her horn pulsed and a life size ghost image of Random appeared, a herd of foals huddled beneath her tattered wings. Korn took one look at the desolation on the young mare's face and turned away.

Gravity advanced on the Master, her voice rising to a shout. "All she did was defend foals when your military made a stupid mistake, so don't tell me about worse. Now fix my sister!"

===

Ears ringing from the volume of the order, Korn started tapping out commands on the direct input panel of the autosurgeon, frowning at the result. He cursed inwardly, reading the unhelpful error message the machine had presented him with. 'Self check failed' he thought, don't do this to Korn now, you piece of-- He typed the same sequence in again, double checking at each stage, only to get the same error. His eyes widened and he suppressed the urge to burst into tears. Oh please, oh please, oh please... His ears drooped and he whimpered quietly, then reached up with a shaking paw to type the exact same sequence in for a third time.

"What?" Gravity said dangerously.

"T-the pony must have c-cut something under the floor, Korn can't reset the surgeon. It won't work." He cowered at the rapidly building fury on Gravity's face, then pointed towards the aid kit on the wall. "T-the pony's sister will recover on her own if the wound is sealed, the paralyzing drug will wear off in another twenty kiloseconds." Korn was babbling now, desperate to get the words out before he suffered the same fate as Salrath. "This one can do the work if the pony wishes it--"

The kit, a plastic box the size of a suitcase, abruptly glowed a bright violet and hurled itself across the room, snapping to a halt next to Korn. He jumped at the sudden movement, then hurriedly fumbled with the catches, throwing open the lid and rummaging through the first aid supplies. While he did this he kept up a running commentary, conscious of the looming presence of Gravity.

"This is a trauma spray, combination antiseptic and anaesthetic, should give your sister some relief," he said, carefully misting the side of her face with a can of something marked with bright yellow stripes. "It's designed for injuries far worse than this one, stops the patient from going into shock before they can reach a proper hospital, stems blood loss without irreversibly sealing any veins and so on." He wasn't a medic by any stretch, but modern equipment made things easy for injuries like this, as long as you could master any squeamishness.

Korn continued his work, the focus required making the fear disappear to leave nothing but the quick, sure movements of his paws against the servitor's abused flesh. It's amazing what the threat of being beaten to death does for this one's confidence, he thought. Trauma spray on both sides of the flap of skin, gently push the flesh back into place and hold it there while painting line of something viscous from a small pen. Keep up the pressure for a count of ten for the wound glue to bond.

For the first time since he'd been told about the project's termination, he actually felt good about something he'd done. No matter that both these ponies will soon be killed outright or disappear into a Eugenics Board lab, at least Korn has done what he could. "It's done," he said, taking a step back and turning to face Gravity. "The pony will be sore for several megaseconds, but there shouldn't be any complica--"

Violet light constricted around his chest and he was flung against the wall hard enough that his teeth rattled. "Anaesthetic," the pony snarled, stalking towards him, "are you telling me that you were cutting my sister open without painkillers?"

The dread flowed back into Korn like a tide. He stared helplessly at the pony, his paws dangling half a length from the ground, watching as her eyes started to haze over, turning solid white without iris or pupil. What should Korn say? he thought. "It was not Korn's idea," he said, shrinking back against the wall, "your program had been cancelled and every servitor involved was to be euthanized. We had no choice; this one wanted to put your sister to sleep first, but he was overruled."

He wrung his paws together, an anguished look on his face. "Korn was trying to cause the minimum amount of suffering, but the Agent interfered." He hung his head. "That's why you saw the video from the surgeon; this one knew that the pony was susceptible to fugue and thought that it would die before its turn in the surgeon came."

Gravity stepped back, her grip on Korn relaxing and her eyes going back to their normal teal colour, her face going slack with shock. "You would have had me tortured to death. Do you have any idea what the Maker's Test is like?" she said faintly.

"Korn didn't know what to do!" he cried. "All choices lead to suffering, including this one's own. Korn will spend the rest of his life in prison for what he's done." His face crumpled, tears running down his muzzle. "Kill Korn now, it would be a mercy. It's his fault that Fusion got found out."

===

Gravity stared at the Master, hanging halfway up the wall in her unbreakable telekinetic grip. He was crying helplessly now, great, gasping sobs through paws held over his face. It sounds like he's just as trapped as I am, only without the immediate promise of vivisection, she thought bitterly. We did everything that was asked of us, and this is the reward. Is this really the best the future holds, a quick death? The unfairness of it all threatened to overwhelm the mare and her magical grip tightened involuntarily.

Korn's choked gasp brought Gravity back to the here and now and she relaxed a little. "If you hadn't turned on the monitor I would have returned to the lab and meekly followed my sister into the maw of your robotic surgeon," she said slowly. "I have to live with my choices, and so do you." She released her magic and lowered Korn gently to the floor, then turned her back on him and jumped over the hole to stand at Fusion's side. "Do not try to leave," she said, not looking around.

Her anger spent, Gravity hesitantly leaned forwards, looking down at her sister's partially shaved head. The wound looked terrible, and no doubt she'd have quite a scar when the fur grew back. The big magenta eye tracked her as she bent forwards, glistening with unshed tears. Gravity's own vision swam, and she blinked furiously to clear her sight, wanting to see clearly for the last kilosecond of her life.

Violet light flickered over the straps, then over Fusion herself. Gently, Gravity lifted her sister out of the restraint system and lowered her to a cleared patch on the floor, pushing back the big robot arms. "I'm so sorry; I should have listened to you. I just wish we could talk..." Gravity said mournfully, letting go of the rest of her magic. Her collection of floating rocks sank to the ground and she folded her legs and sat next to Fusion, huddling close and draping one wing over her sister's limp body.

Resting her head on Fusion's neck, Gravity listened as the white mare's breathing slowed from its frantic panting and became calm. They will come for us soon, she thought, and I don't know what to do.

Author's Note:

FYI: Chapters 22 and 23 have been merged, with some (minor) changes in Gunnulf's characterisation.