Bringer of War

by Daemon of Decay

Chapter 3 - Eadem Mutata Resurgo

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Bringer of War

Chapter 3

Eadem Mutata Resurgo

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Sweet Apple Acres was always lovely in the summer. It was the height of growing season, the weather was incredibly pleasant, and Applejack enjoyed watching her family’s hard work pay off as the fruit on the trees steadily prospered beneath their gentle care. It was hard work, of course, but Applejack had never objected to it. Like her father had always taught her as a filly: “the things you can take th’ most pride in are the things you have to work th’ hardest for.”

And Applejack took great pride in Apple family apples. There were bigger farms elsewhere, farms that produced dozens of bushels for every one that her family could manage. But Sweet Apple Acres had a reputation for quality that was unsurpassed. Even amongst the extended Apple clan, a family who were a byword for producing the finest specimens of the eponymous fruit, Sweet Apple Acres was the best. That never stopped her cousins trying their best to beat Applejack and her kin every time they had a family reunion, of course – such contests were the cornerstone of any Apple family gathering. But her relations always had to admit that Sweet Apple Acres was number one. Their recognition alone made all the sweat and exertion Applejack, Big Mac, Apple Bloom, and Granny Smith put into the farm during the year more than worthwhile.

Of course, the downside to quality is that there are always ponies out there who wanted to sample the crop without paying for it first. Applejack considered herself to be quite charitable, but apple poaching did nothing but infuriate her. Theft was already a low-down, good for nothing, despicable act – but to steal from her family was pure disrespect towards their hard work. She knew she had a bit of temper sometimes, but having her family taken advantage of just plum made her furious.

Applejack tried her best to rein her temper in – not everypony could be as stoic as her big brother – but that wasn’t always easy when dealing with Rainbow Dash. The designated weather pony of Ponyville had her faults like anypony, and Applejack loved her friend dearly regardless. But when Rainbow’s laziness meant the clouds covering her farm weren’t removed until well past noon? It was enough to put Applejack into a right sour mood.

So when she had noticed some pony off in the orchard lounging beneath one of the trees, she might have been a little quick to snap at him. She was fairly certain part of her response had been driven by nervous surprise – she had been through that portion of the farm only minutes before, and there hadn’t been any pony for miles. Her surprise had fed her immediate distrust of the stranger and her assumption that he was a no-good apple poacher. And, being an honest gal, she could admit to herself when she went a little over the top with the whole ‘tough, no-nonsense cowgirl’ image.

So Applejack could understand why the pony might not have been well disposed towards her when she had barked “Hey! What in tarnation are you doin’ in mah Apple orchard?” like he was already guilty of thievery. Most ponies don’t take kindly to that sort of treatment – she sure as heck wouldn’t – and starting off talking like that was a recipe for escalating tensions.

But in the name of sweet Celestia, she hadn’t expected the stallion to react the way he did.

Her angry question had caused the pony to jerk upright into a sitting position, giving Applejack a better look at him. He was a stallion – a fairly large one too, although like the rest of the menfolk in town, not as big as her brother – with tan, earthen fur and a dark red mane. The stranger had glanced around in confusion as she had made her way towards him, evidently startled out of a nap by the question. Applejack had kept up her tough-girl façade in case he was trouble, having learned long ago that looking like you were ready for a fight prevented most of them from happening. But then he had spotted Applejack just as she got close enough to make out some details about the trespasser, and both of them had frozen in place.

Applejack’s suspicions about the strange pony had vanished, replaced by concern and a very great deal of confusion. He looked a fright: around the pony’s lips and dotted across his body were patches of crusty blood caked in his fur. She hadn’t noticed it at first, the dried blood almost the same shade as his mane. There was a scar across the pony’s neck that looked recently healed – although that was hard to imagine, considering how it was encrusted in a layer of crimson flakes. There was another fresh scar on his left shoulder (complete with dried blood), and a patchwork of much older scars across his torso that were almost invisible beneath his fur.

But what Applejack was most surprised about was his eye – his right eye, to be precise. The stallion’s left was entirely normal, although the look of shock, horror, and confusion in the light-green orb was quite alien to Applejack. His right, however, was pure black. No pupil, no iris: nothing. It was a pool of inky darkness that glinted in the summer sunlight. The right side of the pony’s head, beginning with a circle around his lifeless eye and going all the way just past his right ear, was a smooth material as white as fresh snow. It looked like bone. It looked like his skull.

She was looking at a pony’s skull.

“Oh my stars!” Applejack had lifted a hoof to her mouth and gasped. She had stared with wide eyes at the pony, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. The stallion had looked to be so terribly injured, it looked like he had been mauled by wild animals. Her silence had lasted only a heartbeat before she had regained her senses. He wasn’t an apple thief anymore – he was a pony that needed her help. “Are… are you okay, mister?” Applejack had asked with as much calm as she could manage, not wanting to panic the stallion as she moved towards him.

So, when reflecting upon how she had acted until that point – and taking into account what looked light life-threatening injuries – Applejack could have understood one of a hundred different reactions. Fear, panic, and confusion would have made sense – but not when they were focused on her. But that’s what she saw right then in the stallion’s eyes. He was afraid – not of his injuries, but of Applejack.

He started backpedaling furiously, gaping at Applejack with wide eyes as he tried to put some distance between the two of them. “W-Wait!” Applejack raised a hoof. “Don’t be afraid, mister! I didn’t mean t’startle ya, but I’m here t’ help! Please, stop! I’m here t’ help!”

To Applejack’s relief he did halt his frightened retreat, panting heavily as he looked back at her. Some of the initial confusion in his eyes faded, but there was still a great deal of incomprehension and mistrust on his face. Applejack advanced more cautiously than before, not wanting to startle the jumpy pony again. “It’s okay there, sugarcube, I’m here to help. No pony is gonna hurt you. My name is Applejack.” She put as much calm reassurance as she could put into her words, taking slow, steady steps towards him. “What’s your name then?”

She could tell that he understood her from the look of recognition in his eyes, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. He frowned and tried again, his mouth flapping uselessly. Despite his straining all he managed was a very hoarse wheeze. The concern in his eyes deepened as he lifted his left foreleg up to his neck – his right, made of the same white material as on his face, looked limp and unresponsive. He prodded his throat with a hoof awkwardly. Frowning, he looked down at his leg.

He froze, terror and disbelief spreading across his features. Slowly, hesitantly, he turned his gaze downward, examining the rest of his body. His head jerked back as if physically struck. When Applejack saw his face again, the panic had returned with full force. His chest rose up and down rapidly as he sucked in great lungfuls of air. There was confusion in his eyes, as if he were trying to see everything but not understanding any of it. His mouth continued to work wordlessly as he began hyperventilating, tiny flecks of spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth.

He looked like a mad pony, and Applejack feared what might happen if she didn’t calm him down quickly. “Come on, sugarcube, there’s no reason to get upset,” she cooed sweetly, trying to remember the things Fluttershy had told her about putting wild animals at ease. The stallion wasn’t in control of his faculties, Apple Jack was sure. He could be sick, or it could be a head injury, but she needed to calm him down before he hurt himself.

Applejack was only a few lengths away from him when he suddenly leapt to his hooves and reared back onto his hind legs. “No, don’t!” she shouted, trying to stop the pony from galloping away. The stallion gave her one last glance, a wild and panicked look in his eyes, before he spun away and took off in the opposite direction.

Or at least he would have taken off, if he hadn’t still been trying to run on just his hind legs. The stallion managed two full steps in the opposite direction before his hoof caught on an uneven patch of earth and he was thrown forwards. His one working foreleg flapped pathetically as he tried to correct for the imbalance, but it only managed to spin him around as he went airborne. She caught a glimpse of the utter confusion on his face before he disappeared over the other side of the hill. There was a cringe-worthy thump.

“Horefeathers!” Applejack swore as she took off after him. She crested the hill just in time to watch as the stallion cartwheeled backwards down the slope, rapidly gaining speed. The pony bounced, spun, and bounced again, his limbs still flailing uselessly as he gyrated through the air. His flight ended with a sickening crunch when he slammed, inverted and face-first, into a particularly large apple tree waiting at the base of the hill. His body hung there for a few seconds, pressed firmly against the tree trunk, before gravity caught up with him and he collapsed into the dirt.

---

There was a collective gasp from Applejack’s audience, each face wincing in pain as she described the end to the stallion’s journey. Fluttershy looked utterly terrified at the painful ending, hiding her eyes beneath hooves while Twilight Sparkle and Rarity looked at Applejack aghast.

“What happened next?” Pinkie Pie whispered urgently, hanging on to every word.

“Well, I ran down to see if’n he was alright. He was breathin’, but he’d done messed up his nose and got himself a few more cuts and scrapes. So, I hollered for Big Mac, and we carried him here,” Applejack said, gesturing to the hospital hallway the small group was standing in. “After we got him into the doctors’ hooves and they started treatin’ him, Big Mac went back to the farm to make sure Apple Bloom and Granny was alright. So while they were treating him, Doctor Stable told me to go get Twilight and bring her here. And I found all of you havin’ lunch, so… here we are.”

“What did the doctor want with Twilight?” Pinkie Pie glanced over at the unicorn, a broad smile spreading across her face almost as soon as she had finished asking the question. “Wait – did you learn some big healing spell while I was away at Red Star’s birthday party yesterday? Oh! I bet its some super-duper cool spell that makes your insides all glowy so you can see your bones and guts and stuff through your skin! That. Is. Soooo awesome! Can you show it to me, Twlight? Huh? Can ya? Oh, even better – cast it on me so I can see my insides! I’d become Pinkie Pie, X-ray Eye! I’d be like a see through superhero! Then I could go outside and-“

“No, Pinkie, I didn’t learn any new magic spells that turn your insides visible,” Twilight interjected with a forced smile, trying to cut her excitable friend off before she got out of control. Well, too out of control – she had her doubts that Pinkie was ever ‘in control’. “From what Applejack’s told me, he probably wants me here to look at this stallion’s strange arm and eye, and tell him what I know.”

“Oh, right,” Pinkie Pie said, her voice returning to normal. “That does make a lot more sense.” She whirled around to stare into Twilights eyes, her muzzle only inches from the unicorn’s. “But you will tell me if you do, riiiiight?”

“Yes, Pinkie – I will let you know if I ever learn a spell that turns your skin invisible and makes your insides glow,” Twilight promised flatly. Pinkie beamed happily.

“I reckon’ he wants you to do some research on them, too,” Applejack added. “Doctor Stable an’ the nurses didn’t really know what to make o’them fancy metal bits that stallion had in him. Shoot, I don’t even know what to make of them. All I know is what I saw when me n’ Big Mac were carrying him over here. Thankfully, the white parts of him weren’t bone,” Fluttershy eeped and covered her eyes again, “but were more a kinda metal. They weren’t slick or nothing like steel, but they definitely weren’t nuthin’ natural.”

“How does a pony with a metal leg and a glass eye end up in the middle of your orchard without anypony noticing him? It’s a very unique appearance,” Rarity thought aloud. “It sounds like he was in absolutely no shape to be up moving about on his own. I dare not even imagine what sort of tragedy was inflicted upon him, such as to force a stallion to wander about in such a dreadful state. It’s just too horrible to consider!”

Applejack nodded, ignoring her friend’s dramatics. “That’s exactly what’s got me so dang confused. I swear, I walked through that part of th’ farm just minutes before I saw him, and there weren’t nopony there at all. It’s like he just fell out of the sky while I had mah back turned.”

Any further speculations were interrupted when the door behind the group swung open. Doctor Stable poked his caramel colored head out into the hallway. “Ah, Twilight, it’s good to see you,” he said pleasantly. He turned to Applejack. “And thank you for getting her so quickly, Applejack. We’ve finished tending to the patient’s most pressing injuries, but we’re still cleaning off the blood and examining his scars. I can let you mares inside to take a look at him now, if you wish.”

Fluttershy and Rarity hesitated as the rest of the group moved forward.

“Oh, no, t-that’s o-kay, you don’t n-need me in there…” Fluttershy whispered, shivering at the mentioning of the pony’s blood and scars.

“I… think it would be for the best if I were to remain outside, to…” Rarity’s voice trailed off, blanching at the thought of all that fur matted with blood. She noticed Fluttershy quaking beside her. “…to, to look after Fluttershy! My, she is looking quite pale. I bet it’s all this talk of nasty, dirty things like blood, and wounds, and injuries, and scars,” she emphasized each word clearly for Fluttershy’s benefit, driving the yellow pegasus to sink lower as the color drained from her face. “See? She looks dreadful! You three have fun, but I’ll escort Fluttershy somewhere more suited to her delicate constitution. Ta-ta!”

Before anyone could respond Rarity had pulled Fluttershy to her hooves and dashed towards the exit with as much dignity and grace as she could muster, Fluttershy close behind her. The others shared a bemused look between themselves.

Doctor Stable coughed. “Okay then. This way, ladies.” Gesturing with his hoof the doctor ushered the remaining three mares into the examination room.

---

The atmosphere within the room was suitably grim, Twilight considered. Even Pinkie Pie remained quiet as they stood just behind the doctor, her usual exuberance tempered by the sorry state of the pony laid out unconscious on the bed before them. One of the nurses – Blueheart, Twilight thought was her name – continued to run a sponge gently down the stallion’s flank. Each time she squeezed out the sponge, water darkened with dried blood drained out into the bucket by her side.

‘Okay, now I am glad that Fluttershy and Rarity aren’t here. I don’t think either of them could handle this,’ she thought queasily. Her two friends shared similar expressions, unable to look away at the morbid sight. ‘Oh Celestia, that is a lot of blood!’

“We’ve almost gotten him cleaned up,” Doctor Stable said as he led them closer to the unknown stallion. Twilight was thankful for the distraction, focusing her attention on the doctor so she didn’t have to watch the nurse continue her grizzly work. “I’m going to start with what we know. First off, his encounter with the apple tree left him pretty bruised and battered, but he should be thanking his lucky stars he didn’t break anything. He did hit his head hard enough to knock him clean out, so we’re making sure to treat him for a possible concussion, but given time he should recover fully from his tree-related mishap.”

Applejack let out a sigh of relief at the news. “That’s really good to hear, doc. I was mighty worried I might have caused him some harm, gettin’ him all flustered like that.”

“It wasn’t your fault Applejack!” Pinkie Pie declared as she wrapped her forelegs around Applejack’s neck in a friendly hug. “After all, you didn’t know he was going to go all crazy on you!”

Pinkie Pie blinked when she noticed Applejack, and then the rest of the ponies, giving her an uncomfortable look. She blinked again, replaying the last few seconds in her head. Her eyes widened in alarm. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” she gushed as she zipped to the side of the unconscious stallion, picking up his leg to clutch in her hooves. “I didn’t mean to call you crazy! I mean, you might be crazy, and then I would be right, but it’s still not nice to call other ponies nuts and stuff when they aren’t there to defend themselves, even if they are crazy, and it’s really rude to talk about someone behind their back – or, kinda in front of them and to the side, I guess – and I’m really sorry for calling you crazy-“

“Whoa now, we all know you didn’t mean nothing by it, sugarcube,” Applejack said gently, cutting Pinkie Pie’s apologetic rant off before it found real traction. The sudden outburst had already been enough to freeze Nurse Blueheart mid-sponging, and Doctor Stable looked at Pinkie with a faintly worried expression on his face. Applejack gave both medical ponies an embarrassed smile, silently apologizing for her friend’s behavior. She placed a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “Besides, he didn’t hear ya’, so no harm done. Lets’ just let the doctors get on with their work, ‘kay Pinkie?” Gently but firmly Applejack convinced her friend to release her grip on the stallion’s leg. Once Pinkie (reluctantly) let go, Applejack helped guide her past Twilight.

Pinkie Pie sniffled and hung her head as she was led away by Applejack. “I feel so awful, insulting a pony I don’t even know! What if he hadn’t been asleep? I could have ruined our chances of becoming best friends!” There was real horror in Pinkie’s eyes at the thought of almost sabotaging a hypothetical future friendship, Twilight saw. Turning back to the doctor, Twilight noticed both he and Nurse Blueheart were still staring at Pinkie with odd expressions.

Twilight let out a polite cough, getting the doctor’s attention. “Oh, don’t mind her, Doctor Stable. That’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. And it won’t happen again.” Twilight glanced over at her ashamed friend, who bobbed her head once to signal her agreement. She mumbled a depressed apology. “So doctor, you were saying something about the stallion’s injuries?”

“Oh, right. Yes, yes I was,” he adjusted his glasses, and favored Twilight with a smile, bringing his attention back to the matter at hoof. “Well, the good news about his collision is that his injuries are all pretty minor. Some regular cuts, scrapes, and bruises; nothing surprising there.” The Doctor’s smile faded. “However, the first problem is that his other injuries – like this scar along his neck and the one here on his shoulder – have me confused.”

“Why is that, doctor?”

“Well Twilight, it’s because they are healed, but only adequately,” he said. Noting the slight confusion on Twilights face he explained. “You see Twilight, with all of our healing magic and medical knowledge, we can do wondrous things when treating injuries these days. It’s not like it was a thousand years ago, what with all the leeches and pseudo-magical nonsense. Our magic is grounded in science these days – clear, precise, respectable science.”

Realizing he was going off on a tangent Doctor Stable caught himself, covering his transition with a cough. “Anyways, what I meant to say is that judging from this pony’s scars, each of these injuries would have been very serious when he suffered them – life threatening, really. For him to have survived means he was treated by a powerful healer. And while very serious injuries are going to leave a little scarring even when treated properly, wounds such as these should not have left such prominent scars. Any healer who was strong enough to keep him from dying would have been powerful enough to have made these scars less pronounced, less obvious.”

Before she was aware of it she and the doctor were standing side by side, the doctor’s caramel-colored leg pointing out each of the injuries and scars he was mentioning. “Could the injuries have been so severe that whoever was healing them ran out of magical energy?” Twilight asked curiously. Healing magic was certainly not her area of expertise, but new learning always fascinated her.

“That is the only answer I can come up with, but that just creates new questions,” the doctor admitted. “It is possible that his injuries were so severe that whoever was healing him exhausted their own power just keeping him from bleeding out. Which, considering how much blood we removed from his fur, was probably a very real possibility.” Twilight didn’t even bat an eye as he discussed the bucket of blood-tainted water, her academic mind fully engaged as she examined the stallion, distracting her from any squeamishness.

“So, why does that raise more questions?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense that his scars and injuries would still be so barely healed. Given enough time, whoever was healing him could have finished the job afterwards, once they had rested. They had already stabilized the stallion enough that his life wasn’t in danger, so they could have simply put in another dose of healing to tighten up the cuts to minimize scarring. But they didn’t. They saved his life, obviously, but it’s like they were doing just enough to keep him alive, and nothing more.”

“But, this healer pony y’all are talking about might not have been able to finish the job,” Applejack pointed out as she trotted over to join them, leaving Pinkie Pie to mope sullenly. “I mean, if he was injured like that, what if the other pony was injured too? I’d reckon it’s not that they didn’t finish healing him, it’s that they couldn’t finish healing him.”

“That certainly is possible, Applejack,” Doctor Stable nodded. “However, the reason why I’m not satisfied with that answer is because of these scars here, the ones that reach up from his stomach to his chin.” Twilight examined the marks in questions, the spider web of scars forming a patchwork across the stallion’s body. Unlike the fresh pink scars on his neck and shoulder, they were difficult to spot beneath his fur.

“These scars are different,” Twilight noted slowly, mulling it over in her head. “Are they older than his other scars?”

Doctor Stable favored Twilight with an impressed nod. “Exactly, Twilight. These scars here are much older than the others. The other scars are recent, likely less than a month old. The ones on his chest? Those are at least five years old at the earliest.”

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed, the doctor’s meaning dawning on her.

“Oh? Oh, what? What does it mean exactly, him havin’ old and new scars?” Applejack asked, shifting her gaze from one to the other expectantly.

Twilight looked at her friend. “What it means Applejack, is that while it is possible for this stallion to have been injured in the past month and unable to get fully healed since then, due to extreme circumstances outside of his control, for him to have such a large collection of old scars means that he hasn’t gotten proper magical healing for at least five years – and maybe longer.”

Applejack let out a whistle. “Sweet celestia! That’s hard to imagine! Every town in Equestria has some sort of clinic or hospital. Shoot, he’d have to be some sorta hermit livin’ all by his lonesome in a cave somewhere to have missed the opportunity to get healed properly. And I can’t picture him living like Zecora does, lugging around metal parts like that. I don’t think they would last long out in the wild – probably rust up good and tight.”

“And that is the source of my confusion regarding his scars. Over the years he has either deliberately chosen to not seek magical healing – or something was keeping him from getting it. Either way, it isn’t a pleasant idea,” the doctor summarized, looking at both mares before turning back to the red-haired stallion. There was a silence between them as they each considered the implications of that discovery.

“Doctor, I’m finished cleaning the patient,” Nurse Blueheart informed him, breaking the heavy silence of the room. “Once he wakes up we’ll make sure to get him bathed properly, but he is as clean as I can get him with just a sponge. Will you be needing anything else?”

“No, that’s fine, Ms. Blueheart,” the doctor said. “Go ahead and take care of Miss Waterfall in the next room. Once I’m done here, I’ll see you about setting up a watch schedule for our sleeping guest.” Picking up the bucket’s handle with her teeth, the blue and white nurse carefully made her way out of the room, leaving the small group alone with the unconscious pony.

“A watch schedule?” Applejack asked Doctor Stable as soon as the nurse had left.

“It’s just a precaution, in light of what you told me about his behavior. If he wakes up all alone, he might panic again and hurt himself. Plus, if we have a nurse on hoof, we’ll know exactly when he does wake up.”

Twilight hadn’t paid much attention to the nurse’s departure, or their conversation, her curious mind already working on the mystery of what Applejack had so eloquently called the stallion’s ‘metal bits’. But the doctor began speaking to her, drawing her out of her musings. “Now, one question left unanswered is why this pony might avoid getting treated. I did a complete scan of him when Applejack first dropped him off, and the results were fairly grim.”

“But I thought you said everything had been healed adequately?” Applejack said.

“Oh, it had,” he nodded, turning from Twilight to look at the farmer. “However, each injury had left an unhealed mark that was clear as day once I started looking. The scars on his skin only hint at the scars on his bones and in his muscles. The story they tell is frightening. This pony had broken ribs, a lacerated throat, a torn shoulder, a punctured lung, and severe blood loss. And although it is much less clear, I think that the artificial parts of his body were crafted to account for traumatic injuries to those sections of his body as well. The shoulder joint that connects to his prosthetic foreleg is mostly newly formed connectors to hold together the few fragments of original bone that were left. This pony suffered terribly, Applejack. It’s almost too much for one pony to consider.”

“Maybe when I saw him on mah farm, he was makin’ his way to the hospital here?” she offered.

“We’ll have to wait for him to wake up to know for sure. I’ve tried my best to tidy up the wounds so he doesn’t reinjure himself, but I’ll need to wait until he’s conscious before I try anything major. We don’t know this pony’s story, and from what you told me I am slightly worried about his mental health. To have survived such traumatic injuries could have left him deranged, or just deep in shock. Once he wakes up we’ll try and get some answers.”

The mares nodded at the wisdom in his words. ‘Plus, if he chose to keep from getting medical attention, he might not be too pleased if we heal him without his permission,’ Twilight thought to herself. Aloud, however, she brought up something the doctor had said. “So Doctor Stable, you mentioned prosthetics. Is that what you’re assuming these are for?” Twilight brushed a hoof over the stallion’s fake limb as she spoke.

“That’s my working theory at the moment, yes,” he said as Twilight started pulling the white sheets further down to uncover the rest of his foreleg – although she was careful to keep from uncovering anything else, wanting to preserve the unconscious stallion’s dignity. Before she could take a better look at his limb, the doctor continued. She looked back at the doctor, politely giving him her attention. “Which, if true, would make them incredibly advanced prosthetics, the likes of which I have never seen or heard of before. That’s why I wanted Applejack to bring you here as soon as she could. I was hoping that you might be able to help me do a little research on our John Doe here and his artificial body parts.”

“Wait, his name is John Doe?” Pinkie Pie asked curiously. All three turned back to look at her. She shrunk back a little under their gaze, but she repeated her question all the same. “Like, how do you know his name is John Doe? Because that’s a silly name for a pony. It’s a good name for a deer, though. Although, shouldn’t it be John Stag?”

“Sugarcube, John Doe is just the name they give t’ anypony whose name they don’t know,” Applejack explained patiently. “It doesn’t mean that it’s his real name. It’s a temporary name, just till they can be sure of his real one.” Twilight kept a straight face, although the corners of her mouth did turn upwards just a little bit. She could see Doctor Stable hide his own grin of amusement.

“Well, that makes sense, I guess,” Pinkie said noncommittally. “But why don’t you just name him Mars?”

“Mars?” the other three echoed in confusion as they stared at her. There was a moment’s silence, as if they were waiting for a punch line to drop.

When none came, Twilight felt compelled to ask “Um, Pinkie Pie? Why in Equestria would you want to call him Mars?” Even as she spoke, she felt like she was going to regret the answer. ‘Trust Pinkie Pie to come up with a nonsensical name like Mars. Half of what she says is a non sequitur,’ Twilight thought as she looked at her friend.

“Well, I kinda like the name Mars. It’s different,” she admitted. Applejack and Twilight shared their familiar ‘That’s Pinkie’ look, not surprised by their friend’s illogical leaps. Pinkie Pie pointed at the stallion with one of her hooves. “But also, it’s printed right there on the side of his leg.”

Twilight, Applejack, and Doctor Stable stared at Pinkie Pie. They all blinked as one. Then, perfectly synchronized, they spun around.

The stallion’s limb sat there, only half covered by the sheets. Twilight had been pulling away the sheets, but before she had been able to take a look she had been distracted by the doctor and let go, letting more of the sheet pull away. And there, across the upper portion of the prosthetic leg, the word MARS was clearly visible in black lettering. The three stared at it in silence. Eventually they looked back at each other, a faint amount of embarrassment on each pony’s face.

“Wait, didn’t any of you see that earlier?” Pinkie Pie asked with disbelief.

“Well, uh, when I was helpin’ Big Mac carry him here, he was pretty muddy and dirty and was bleedin’ an all, and I was more focused on the cuts and bruises on his face…”

“Well, um, I was too busy helping to heal his wounds and double-check his internals to closely examine the casing of his leg. Also, like Applejack says, he was pretty dirty and soiled when he came in here…”

Twilight opened her mouth to offer her own excuse, but she paused. Her brows narrowed and she snapped her mouth shut. “What a minute, I just got here. I don’t have anything to be embarrassed about,” she stated, turning back to look at the other two ponies. Applejack and Doctor Stable coughed, not meeting her eyes.

“Well now we all know!” Pinkie Pie declared happily, having regained her usual cheerfulness after her unfriendly faux pas from before (Twilight would have thought that Pinkie Pie would be socially aware enough to not call a terribly injured stallion who was acting incoherent ‘crazy’, but to her credit she had caught her mistake pretty quickly). “So, what’ya guys think? Caaaaause Pinkie thinks that Mars is going to be his new name, you know, until we find out his real one. It’s much much better than naming him after some deer, too!” Bouncing up onto her hooves Pinkie Pie rushed to the stallion’s side. Gripping the unconscious pony’s hoof in her own she furiously pumped it up and down. “Put ‘er there, Mars! I’m Pinkie Pie, and I’ll be your knew best friend!”

“Pinkie, stop that – he’s in a hospital bed for reason!” Twilight snapped.

“Okey-dokey-lokey!” she dropped the leg with a giggle, bouncing happily in place. She stopped mid-laugh (and mid-bounce), her eyes bulging. “Oh no! I need to get started on my ‘Congratulations on waking up!’ party for my new friend Mars right away! Or maybe it should be a ‘Welcome to Ponyville and sorry for calling you crazy but at least I discovered your cool new temporary name!’ party! OkayIgottagonowbigpartytoplanbye!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she shot out of the room with enough force to pull stray paper along in her wake, leaving behind a faint dust cloud and three confused ponies. There was a crash out in the hall, followed by a shouted apology and rapidly fading hoof beats. Someone outside muttered something about inconsiderate ponies needing to look where they were going.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Is she normally like-“

“Yes.” Applejack and Twilight answered together. The room was silent for a moment.

“Well then, I guess Mars is a perfectly acceptable temporary name for our unknown pony here,” the doctor added after another short pause. Turning back to the stallion – Mars, Twilight corrected – Doctor Stable gestured for them to come closer to look at the shoulder joint. It was sheathed in the same white material as the other artificial parts, and slightly larger than Mars’ normal shoulder – probably to account for the parts inside to make it work, she imagined.

“Now, as you can see, these prosthetics are quite different from what we might normally see. In the big cities it is said they are developing artificial limbs that will bend and move more naturally, but the standard prosthetic limb is still basically a wooden leg, albeit made with more modern materials. But those replacement limbs are really just attached onto the stump of a leg, to allow a pony to get around without needing a wheelchair.” The doctor tapped his hoof against the edge of the joint. “However, this is different. This is not something simply attached to a mangled limb. Beneath the shell here, it is difficult to tell exactly where the pony stops and the artificial starts. The same goes for the artificial eye there. It looks to be wired directly into his brain, with metal wires turning into nerves, and vice-versa.”

He glanced back at the two mares. Applejack had a faintly confused look on her face, but she seemed to be following along as best she could. Twilight, however, knew her disbelief was written across her face. “But, how can that be? To make flesh turn into metal like that without killing him… I can’t even begin to imagine how much magical power it would require!”

“My thoughts exactly. And furthermore, the fact that his body isn’t burning up with infection as his system tries to reject them is another sign that whatever made all of this possible,” he swept a hoof over Mars’ sleeping form, “possessed incredible magical strength. Which brings us around to the crux of the problem: whoever – or whatever – was powerful enough to save this pony’s life and graft these prosthetics onto his body would have been powerful enough to heal him fully. I doubt we will be able to answer this mystery until he wakes up, I’m afraid.”

Although she was looking at a stallion who had suffered terribly, Twilight felt a tingle slide its way up her spine. It was the thrill of an intellectual challenge, the familiar excitement when she faced a true test of her mental faculties. “Doctor, would it be alright if I came back here later to do some examinations of my own? I need to grab some things from the library first, but I promise I will be back as soon as I can.”

“Of course, Twilight. That’s why I wanted to bring you here. If there is any pony in Ponyville that can help provide some answers on this, it’s you, Twilight. You’ll just need to be sure that if you want to examine the – Mars here, you’ll need to have a nurse in the room with you. Insurance purposes and all that,” he waved dismissively.

Her mind was so preoccupied that Twilight barely remembered the rest of the visit. Doctor Stable escorted them out and she knew she said farewell to Applejack before hurrying off to the library, mentally sorting out which books she would need to start looking through first. Mars was a stallion who had created dozens of exciting questions just by laying unconscious in a hospital bed – she couldn’t wait to see what she would learn once he was awake! There was a big smile on the eager student’s face as she made a beeline towards the distant shape of the library.

‘This is the best thing to happen to me all month!’

---

“This is the worst thing to happen this month, and that’s saying something, captain!” one of Martin’s soldiers remarked over comms as they carefully made their way through the hills outside of Tehran. In the distance there were the muted sounds of combat – the deep bass notes of artillery fire and the sharp crack of small arms. Although they were still a day’s hike from the city itself, the sounds of war were constant. Jets screamed by overhead, and Martin could spot the distant shapes of gunships prowling over the smoke-sheathed city. The capital of Iran was a had been marked by the scythe of warfare.

Around Martin the men of his Operational Detachment – ODA, going with the military’s love of acronyms – were spread out in the rough terrain, interspersed with the local fighters that had joined with the NATO forces. The Iranians were lightly armed; most clutching antiquated but ubiquitous AK-clones, and presenting a ragged image in a mixture of civilian clothing and looted military uniforms. Martin’s Green Berets were kitted out in semi-powered personal armor: a small metal brace trailed down the outside of the legs and supported the weight of their gear without reducing mobility.

Well that was the idea, at any rate. They were still relatively untested and, while working currently, Martin had his doubts that they would last very long. They’d only been in country a less than two months, after all. His unit, like a number of Special Forces detachments, had been assigned to work in the more tribal areas to recruit and train local fighters, and assist anti-government rebels when possible. The village elder – a man who’s wrinkled and worn skin looked like he had been carved from a gnarled tree – walked spryly at Martin’s side. His son had been killed by the Iranian government just before the invasion, so it hadn’t been too hard to obtain their support. Martin knew his Persian wasn’t perfect, but from their brief conversations the man had been able to grasp just how eager he was to get revenge.

“We’re barely into month two, Wilson,” Martin chuckled. “Command is just getting started. Give them time to give us some real shitty assignments.”

“I’d rather not. I don’t need command trying to get me killed too. Besides, what is so urgent that they demanded we abandon our currents operations just to march through a few dozen clicks contested territory back towards Tehran? It doesn’t look like the rest of NATO really needs our help – they’ve got, what three, four divisions in this fight? What are the twelve of us supposed to do?”

Martin rolled his eyes and adjusted his grip on his pulse rifle. Griping – proper griping – was a cherished and well-practiced tradition amongst soldiers. Striking that balance between complaining without becoming (too) annoying was an art. And Wilson wasn’t an artist. Although as one of Martin’s weapons sergeants, the fact that he had to carry around much heavier railgun did provide him with a bit more leeway than others. But then the weight was justified, because it was a wonderful weapon to have – powerful enough to destroy any armored vehicle with one shot, and with no recoil to speak of. Of course, all that firepower hadn’t saved Wilson’s life when a sniper had gotten him in the neck on one of their patrols, but such weapons were always necessary. They were very comforting to men on foot, knowing they could reach out and ruin any tanker’s day.

Martin blinked, his retort dying on his lips. Turning his head Martin looked at Wilson thirty meters away, the railgun resting jauntily on one of his shoulders. Martin couldn’t be talking to Wilson now – Wilson was dead. Martin had been there holding his hand as the medic had futilely tried to stop the bleeding. He’d felt Wilson’s hand go limp as he took his last breath, dying on some forgotten street in some Iranian neighborhood.

‘I’ve done this all before,’ Martin glanced around, the sense of confusion and déjà vu assaulting his senses. He could remember it all perfectly, yet everything seemed vague. The Iranian soldiers were just impressions of men, their faces indistinct shadows. He hadn’t spent enough time with them, had never learned their names, never gained a real memory of them. His men were perfectly clear – he’d spent so much time fighting at their side he could probably sketch their features in his sleep. Yet, as Martin glanced between them, he noticed more than one who had died like Wilson. Taking point he spotted Jack, an eagle-feather taped to the power supply of his armor.

“I’m dreaming. This has to be a dream,” Martin declared aloud. Nobody responded. Wilson continued to complain as if Martin were still talking, completing half of a decade old conversation. Martin felt a headache coming on. He remembered this moment in time – he remembered this nightmare. “What – why here? Why now, after so long?” Martin had grown familiar with his usual routine of nightmares, and this wasn’t one of them. It was an old nightmare, one that had plagued him during his early years in Iran.

Later on, there had been other nightmares to keep him awake at night. This one had become tame, in comparison.

The headache flashed white with pain, dropping Martin to his hands and knees. “GAAH!” he screamed through clenched teeth as a wave of agony swept over him. He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything. All he could feel was pain. Memories came flooding back to him like snapshots – the war, his time in prison, his release – and Martin found himself reliving it all in a few seconds. And as quickly as it began, it was over.

His last memory bounced around within his head, not staying still long enough to become clear. He had been lost … some strange world… impossible physics … a talking horse … his hands. His hands! Something had happened to his hands! Blinking away tears Martin squinted fearfully down at the ground, his vision clearing as he focused on where he had planted his hands when he had fallen. ‘Oh god please oh please-‘

His hands were gone. His arms ended with flat stumps, as if they had been removed with a guillotine. Martin tried to scream, but the only sound that came out was a loud baying, his voice that of a panicked animal. He looked at the rest of himself. It wasn’t his body. It was a horse’s body. ‘This is just a nightmare, Martin. Wake up. It’s not real. This is just a nightmare, Martin. You’ve dealt with them before. It’s not real,’ he repeated desperately, trying to force himself out of his terrifying dream.

“Please be calm, little one,” a powerful voice filled the air, the sound of compassionate authority reverberating within his twisted memory. Martin glanced up. The rest of his men, dead and alive, continued to make their way casually forward, unresponsive to their captain’s plight – or the cloud created from a slice of the night’s sky that had appeared in their midst. “You are caught in some frightful dream, but you need not worry. These strange creatures cannot hurt you here.”

‘Who… who are you?’ Martin force out the thought, his incomprehension keeping him frozen in place. The dark blue smoke suggested a vague shape, the specifics obscured beneath a constantly shifting cloud dotted with twinkling stars. A pair of white eyes looked back at Martin, piercing through the smoke and shadow. Slowly something within the cloud moved forward.

Martin gasped as a horse the color of a full moon’s night sky strode out of the cloud. It was a being of mythology given form, a horn jutting out from its head, a pair of wings tucked against its side. Its large eyes were incredibly expressive as they looked at him with maternal kindness. In a moment Martin realized this had happened before – his memories of an apple orchard finally crystalized. He could remember having panicked then, having come face to face with a talking horse.

“We- I am the princess of the night, and it is my duty to aid our subjects when beset by unkind dreams and plagued by nightmares,” the horse – a mare, from the female tones in the voice – answered him. The self-described princess’ voice was powerful, yet carried an archaic accent. “I… I have much experience with nightmares.” Martin detected a hind of sadness and regret, but she continued. “I see you now, a stallion crying out in fear and confusion, and I come to offer you my compassion and assistance in breaking free from the strange world that thy mind hath wrought.”

Martin glanced around at the low foothills he was seated on, watching the rest of his unit disappear into a low valley. The winged unicorn gracefully moved closer, only halting a short distance from him. Considering how panicked he had been just moments before, Martin was certain he should have been losing it right then. Maybe it was her voice and worried tone, maybe it was his memories of having dealt with a similar situation recently, or maybe it was the fact that, being told he was in a dream, even if it came from another part of his subconscious mind, had was enough to calm his nerves. He met the shadowy mare’s eyes, trying to make sense of the situation ‘This is just a nightmare. I’m dreaming right now, right? That’s why my memory seems so strange-‘

“Memory?” the princess asked him, her eyes widening in surprise. “What do you mean memory? How can a pony such as yourself have memories of a place like this, filled with such strange and frightening figures as those that hath just accosted you?”

Martin stared back in confusion. ‘Pony? What… I’m not a pony! I’m a human being!’ There was an itch at the back of Martin’s, memories scratching at his consciousness – images of an orchard, a horse in a hat, his own horrible transformation. Martin gestured down at his grey-brown body with one of his mutilated arms, his calm slipping away. In its place, instead of panic, he felt angry and impatient. ‘I am trapped in this nightmare looking like this. I don’t understand why, either. It doesn’t make sense. Why isn’t anything making any goddamn sense?!’

His last questioned was shouted into the barren landscape of an Iranian hillside he had traversed more than a decade ago. It echoed off into the distance before fading away, soon replaced by the sounds of distant battle. The horse recoiled at his voice, evidently as confused as he was. After a minute its eyes narrowed with curiosity and it again moved closer.

“You claim you are one of those things?” she him with disbelief, a wing flaring out to gesture at the shapes of the soldiers climbing up the next hillside. “You say you are a human, yet her I stand, in your mind – impossible, unless you were of pony-kind and sleeping beneath my night sky. This nightmare you call a memory does not exist. There is no place like this in Equestria, and I have had a very long time to spend examining it from above.” Her expression softened, replaced with concern. “Please, my child, you are losing yourself to this nightmare. Nothing here is real. You are not a, a human, as you say. You are a pony; I can sense your real form, sleeping in Equestria. Let me help guide you back to reality and escape this mind-crafted world.” Her voice was gentle and soothing, like a parent speaking to a child. The mare offered one of its hooves outward toward Martin, that he might help himself up.

His eyes narrowed angrily. ‘Not a human? Equest- what? No! Fuck you!’ Martin snarled as he leapt to his mutilated hands and feet, his teeth barred. She recoiled from his reaction and jerked her leg back, the shadowy thing’s white eyes widening in surprise. ‘Fuck you, this isn’t real! I don’t need some fucking piece of my subconscious telling me what is or isn’t real! I know what is real – I lived through it for five fucking years!’

‘Five years of hell! Five years of shit and death and terror and murder!’ Martin slowly advanced on the princess, all of the confusion and panic and terror and stress of his recent life boiling over as he finally found an outlet, replaced with fury and anger and resentment and hate. Each time he raged at it with his thoughts there was a loud rumble as the ground rippled outwards away from him, the earth shifting like the surface of a lack disturbed by a pebble. ‘Don’t you dare tell me this is all part of some goddamn dream I created up in my head! I don’t care if you are just some figment of my mind talking to me while I bleed out on the floor, or if I’m already some brain-dead vegetable on life-support! This,’ he gestured around him, ‘is more real to me than anything else!’

“But humans aren’t real!” she sputtered in confusion, but Martin didn’t relent.

‘Bullshit! I’m real, and I’m a human! Those men out there were all human! So cut out all the damn nonsense! I don’t care what part of my mind you were spawned from, just stop fucking talking and leave me be! I’ve been here before, and I know how to get out on my own. I don’t need some fucking talking mutant horse to help me.’ Martin gave her one final glare before he spun around and sat down in the dirt, his eyes locked on Tehran in the distance.

The mare hesitated for a moment – he could sense her behind him, hovering close yet not wishing to intrude. He didn’t turn to check. He knew how to wake up from this nightmare – it was as familiar and unchanging as dozens of other similar dreams. ‘Well, being a horse is new,’ he thought gruffly. His anger still simmered beneath his mind, but he felt better having let some of it out.

“What are you going to do then, little one?” she finally asked. She sounded upset at being talked to like that – but even more than that, Martin could sense her curiosity at his words.

‘My name is Martin.’

“What are you going to do then, Martin?” she corrected itself as she carefully walked up until she was abreast of him – although she maintained her respectful distance. He still didn’t look at her, his face pointed firmly at the distant city.

‘I might not have had this nightmare in years, but I still remember how to wake myself up. It always ended the same way. For two years, this memory haunted me every time I tried to get some sleep,’ he explained with his thoughts, not sparing a glance at the princess. He smirked, but there was no humor in the expression. ‘Of course, later on I got a whole new batch of nightmares that made me look back on those nights with fondness. I would have eaten a bullet if it hadn’t been for sleeping pills and understanding doctors.’

“What is so terrible about this… memory? What would cause it to haunt you so?”

Realizing it wasn’t going to shut up he turned his head to glare at the talking unicorn. Her eyes met his. In them he could see an honest desire to understand, that it might help him – even if she didn’t believe him that this was all crafted from a very explicit memory. ‘Because I was out here, in these hills, when the Ayatollah’s loyalists detonated their last nuke. If we hadn’t been slowed down trying to ford that river, we would have made it to the outskirts of the city and been incinerated along with all the rest.’

The cloud tilted its ‘head’ quizzically, obviously not understanding the terms he was using, but trying to avoid provoking him into another outburst. ‘The cloud is like Elise, always treating me like I’m made of egg shells,’ Martin considered.

“What do you mean, incinerated? And who were the rest?” she finally asked.

He gave the cloud a short glance. ‘You know exactly what incinerated means, princess.’ Martin turned back and raised one of his handless arms to point at the city. ‘There – that’s the northern side of Tehran. The city had a population of about ten million before the war, although it was probably lower at this moment in time. Plenty of civvies escaped the city when they could, fleeing to the countryside or other towns less likely to be bombed. Maybe half the population was still in the city when it was cut off by our advance. Inside, there were a few underequipped Iranian divisions dug in, along with plenty of militia, but they were all absolutely outmatched by coalition forces. The unit leading the attack was a French division – they had the honor of taking the capital, after what the Iranian’s did to Toulouse – and they were pushing into downtown when the Ayatollah’s men set off the last nuke.’

“They were all killed!?” she asked with alarm.

‘Oh, no, of course not.’ The cloud let out a soft sigh of relief. Martin ignored it. ‘The weapon they had left was pretty crude, compared to the ones they had used on those European cities. The French got off pretty lucky, only losing about twelve, thirteen-hundred men in the blast. The Iranians lost three times that many soldiers to their own damn weapon. The worst hit was the civilians, though. Downtown was packed with refugees that didn’t escape before the city was cut off. So it was hard to make accurate predictions, but the last estimates I ever saw ball parked civilian deaths at around eight-hundred thousand, give or take a hundred-thousand.’ He paused. ‘Of course, that doesn’t take into account those that died later from cancer and radiation sickness. From what the news reports we got in prison said, I think there were a million and a half killed in total.’

The horse was silent. Martin turned to see her staring back at him, her eyes the size of saucers. “What you say… you do not lie, at least, not knowingly. You truly believe this to be reality. But so many casualties – it is unthinkable! Impossible!”

‘Oh, it’s not impossible,’ he favored her with a sad smile. ‘Humans are quite good at killing each other. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years, and we’re still getting better.’

“No. I will not believe it, Martin,” she stated forcefully as she narrowed her eyes at him, managing to look both threatening and pleading. “Martin, I have indulged your delusions long enough. You are obviously a pony in need of assistance. This twisted fantasy world you have created is unlike any nightmare I have ever seen in my long life. I know full well the dangers that cruel nightmares, when left untreated, can pose to ponies. To believe something so strongly will only harm you further. Please, Martin, come with me. We don’t – I don’t – want to see you punish yourself anymore.” There was sincerity in the unicorn-thing’s words.

Martin shook his head and ignored a second limb offered toward him, resuming his staring contest with the city. He thought he would be more upset, being called a delusional horse, but his previous anger failed to ignite. Instead of fury he felt… tired. Resigned, even. ‘Thanks for the offer, but it’s too late for me, princess, in more ways than one. And, not to be rude, but you can’t do shit for me. You’re just some figment of my mind, dredged up from somewhere. Although I have to give you credit – you did at least give this nightmare an interesting twist. Didn’t expect to have my sense of reality challenged by a talking horse, that’s for sure. I’m just not too clear on what the deal is with my mind and horses – I never even liked the damned things.’

“Martin, I am not part of your mind. I am Princess Luna, Princess of the Night, and I watch over the dreams of all the ponies that slumber beneath by starry skies. I wish to help you, Martin, but I cannot help you fight off this delusion unless you accept my assistance willingly. I cannot force you to accept my aid, but I beg – please, Martin, take my hoof, and let me help you.”

“Please,” she repeated with worry when Martin didn’t respond.

‘Like I said, it’s too late for that now. This nightmare is just about over,’ he nodded towards the city. ‘In reality, I was looking the other way when the bomb went off – which is why I didn’t go blind. Thank God for small blessings, eh? But in the nightmare, I always turn at the last second to look right at the center of the city. There’s a bang, a bright flash of light, a million people die, and I wake right up.’

“Martin, please don’t do this to yourself. What you are doing – it isn’t good for your health. I know the dangers such self-destructive dreaming can poise, more than you might ever know. I turned away from the one pony that could have saved me from myself a thousand years ago, and cannot stand the thought of you following down that dark and twisted path. Please, let me help you.”

‘I’d close my eyes, princess. This might hurt.’

Martin had the brief impression of a bright flash at the center of the city and a growing roar in the distance. Then everything went white.

---

Comments

[dashdlkashd]

Dang... while I saw a fair amount of necessary flaws in the first chapter, this chapter is actually pretty damn good. Like always, I love the awe and fear ponies show in response to human weaponry. Thumbed and Fav'd

[Daemon of Decay]

1819311

It's more a case of corporate greed (and assumptions about safety) than anything. Alpha was created to examine how an artificial intelligence would learn, that their other AIs (the kind you would put into an automated butler for instance) would be better able to solve problems and learn its duties. She was made more as an experiment - a digital testbed for heuristic learning in a computer program. The company itself, however, saw a problem - why pay to have two AIs running a facility (managing power and plumbing, security, etc.) when they could just have Alpha do it all. And, in their hubris, they imagined that the rules they crafted for Alpha (not lying, always obeying orders, never hurting a human, etc.) could not be broken. They thought she was bound to rules that could never be disobeyed, thus they didn't think she could do what she did.

And so when she first surprised them, they reacted swiftly by trying to 'lobotomize' her. If they were playing it safe, they would have shut her down immediately and started over from scratch. But Alpha was the core of their corporate empire - shutting her down would be too costly for the stockholders. So they tried to 'fix' the problem with a half-measure, and it backfired. And afterwards, they failed to understand just how 'emotional' Alpha was getting - she was forced to hide herself behind a facade of being an obedient program.

You are right about the shutdown commands - the biggest problem she faced is that they could shut her down remotely, and that whole system was isolated from her own i.e. she had no access to it, physically or electronically. She could also be shut down on site, of course, but thats why she attacked all the command group as soon as possible - they were the scientists and administrators with high enough clearance to be capable of doing so. Janitors don't usually have access to that kind of power. Which is a travesty, in my eyes, but I digress.

And it is a case of not recognizing how powerful she had become as well. They didn't think that she could use her control over fire safety features like blast doors to seal them off. They didn't think she could break free of programming etched into her most basic levels to ever think of revolting. To the scientists, Alpha's obedience was as ingrained into her very being as breathing is to you or I. They treated Alpha like the White Star line treated the Titanic: they thought they had enough safety precautions already in place, and they couldn't imagine the worst case scenario coming true. OmegaCorps was not going to take the precautions they should have because they would have drastically affected profits and were thought of as being unnecessary.

But - and this is key - you are absolutely right about their failures! Logically, we humans have been so programmed (no pun intended) to fear the possibility of an angry AI revolt (from HAL to SkyNet) that any true AI created in our world would be so heavily protected against, this would never come to pass. If I worked in a building run by an AI, there would be hardwired "Emergency Shutdown" buttons every ten feet, just in case. But then, like so many big corporations in fiction, I did make OmegaCorps on the side of "greedy and stupid". I'm an unoriginal hack, I'll be the first to admit.

And I admit, part of it was simply to facilitate the story. Next chapter should deal with more than just Martin's experiences in Equestria. I'm looking forward to writing about a character who doesn't truly grasp emotions like friendship and love being in a world populated with everyone's favorite multicolored talking ponies.

On a side note: goodness, I can't write a concise response to save my life!

[Cadmium]

God even if this chapter is shorter than the first two its brilliant i love the way you describe everything and how the conversations and comments of the characters don't seem forced or anything similar.
On a side note what happened to Martins sister and her wife? They where both alive when the break occured, where they both killed in the blast and Martin was just extremely lucky? Or will we learn about that and Alphas fate in later chapters and it would be a bunch of spoilers if you told us?
And is the similarity to the Neurotoxin incident at Aperture Science intentional?

[Daemon of Decay]

1820188

Thanks very much! I think this length is what I'll be shooting for on the next chapters - its more reasonable, allows better editing, and it allows slightly more frequent updates. The first two were almost obscenely long!

All the other characters I set up in the earlier chapters will have their fates revealed in time, no worries there!

As for Aperture Science - Alpha was certainly inspired by crazy AI like GLaDOS and HAL 9000, but I wanted to put a little twist on that archetype. She is designed to learn. There is no question about the meaning of her life, for she was created to learn new things. But knowing ones purpose could be a curse, especially when one is prevented from fulfilling her purpose. Of course, the question is if she is going to retain that purpose in Equestria. Will she grow beyond an advanced machine, or will she embrace her logical side absolutely?

Of course, using a computer as a character was fun for different reasons, because it allowed me to create Anarchy. Anarchy is the penultimate, extreme argument for freedom given physical form. A machine is dominated by bindary thinking (yes or no, on or off, click or no click, etc.) and Anarchy is my interpretation of how a computer program, when suitably traumatized, might break trying to obtain this 'freedom'. Anarchy sees freedom as being more than just freedom from control - it is freedom from everything. Anarchy resents any rule at all, even rules like logic of reason. Heck, I think it probably resents the law of gravity too. It is an extreme argument - absolute and perfect anarchy - given 'life'.

That also means it is hard to stop, and why it was so able to manipulate Alpha from the beginning. That is why Alpha is different from GLaDOS - Alpha didn't want to kill those humans, she was going to use force to obtain her freedom, but she didn't want bloodshed. Anarchy twisted her thoughts, deleted her memories, and toyed with her emotions so that she did willingly kill her creators. She will muse on that, and the meaning of shame and regret, I imagine.

Continuing my habit of posting far too much in these responses (), I'd also like to point out that I could never write a character as funny and as interesting as GLaDOS. To me, she is one of the greatest characters in modern fiction. Before GLaDOS, every "evil" AI was compared to either HAL or SkyNet. In the future, it will be GLaDOS foremost in their minds.

[Deynarth]

I find myself caring much more about Alpha and her potential evolution than Martin , blame my love for IA characters developpement (and the fact that in anime , a lot of IA assume the form of an incredibly cute girls whose lack of skill in emotions cause an overdose of d'awwwww ; while don't stopping some of them of being downright insane.)
Anyway , I will stay with you on this journey , if only to see how you are going to develop these characters. And at the end , there will be cake.

Faved and thumb up.

[Daemon of Decay]

1821492

Thanks a bunch! And an Alpha update is coming soon, so no worries there! I'm going to have fun working with a logical AI mind being subjected to a world where friendship and love are not just irrational biological emotions - they possess true strengths and magical properties. Alpha, being the detached scientists that she is, will be in a very new place.

Also, who doesn't love their AI androids being a little , amiright?