//------------------------------// // Act III - 18 - Converging // Story: Harmony's Warriors: Iron Mare (Revised Version) // by Avenging-Hobbits //------------------------------// Act III: "Crossing Paths" Chapter Eighteen: "Converging" As Rarity banked over the wide open deserts, she let out a deep breath, a grin spreading across her face as the supreme sense of satisfaction that accompanied a job well done flowed through her mind and body. She’d done it, she’d finally done it. She’d kept her word. Kept the promise she made all that time ago in that cave. She’d used her knowledge, her abilities, for good, and while it was just a small village, she honestly felt she’d made a real difference. “Rarity? Rarity you there?” Came Sweetie’s voice over the comm in a burst of crackly static, drawing Rarity out of her thoughts. Rarity blinked in surprise, before switching her mic on. “Yes, Sweetie, I’m here. What is it?” “How did it go?! You dropped out of comm range, so I didn’t get to see the action!” Sweetie eagerly replied, obviously very curious and excited. “Those monsters won’t be hurting anyone anytime soon,” Rarity answered with satisfaction. “Not if I can help it.” “Well, don’t leave me hanging! Tell me!” Sweetie insisted, causing Rarity to giggle somewhat. The filly sounded like a filly in a candy store, but Rarity still found herself eager to share what happened. It was a feeling not unlike the jitters before an expo, except now it wasn’t just the thought of her ego being stroked by fawning fans. This was a jitter born of doing something that mattered. “Oh Sweetie, you should have seen the looks on the villagers faces! They really were a marvel to behold! I mean, there I was, actually doing something!” “How did the suit work?! No problems?!” “Oh, absolutely not, she worked like a dream! Absolutely fabulous!” Rarity replied with a healthy dose of pride. “But really, Sweetie, the way I feel right now--you should have seen how they reacted to me leaving the leader behind for them--there were so many emotions held in their faces. There was fear, there was confusion, shock, surprise--but most of all, it was awe. As if I’d been made of diamonds, some sort of mythical angel sent to save them.” “‘Mythical angel’? Don’t let it go to your head, Rarity, you’re just a mare, like anypony else.” Sweetie answered, as Rarity gave an acknowledging nod. After all, she’d done this not for the fame, or the thanks, but because it was the right thing to do. Pure and simple. “Still...I suppose the recognition has its charm…” Rarity replied, smirking. Smile on her face, she glanced at her HUD display. “TOM, can you hear me?” she began, clearing her throat slightly. “Tell me, how much energy do I have? I can make it home, correct?” There was a beeping wurr as TOM ran some calculations. “Affirmative, Rarity. Central power is at 89%, and holding steady.” Rarity rose her eyebrows slightly. “Eighty nine percent? I wonder where those ten points went…” her voice trailed off, before she shrugged slightly. “Well, no matter, I’ll do a full power analysis when I get home. No need to worry now, I mean--like you said TOM--plenty of energy to make it home without a scratch--” *BOOM* The deafening explosion just feet away from Rarity’s body send her spiraling away in a disoriented swirl of blue and brown as the sky and earth below switched places dozens and dozens of times over. Her hooves flailed, rockets flaring as she tried to regain her balance. “TOM, what in Equestria is going on?!” She called out in a panic, eyes darting from flashing alert to flashing alert as her horn glowed, frantically trying to at least slow herself down. All around her the sky seemed to erupt in a relentless wave of explosions and bursts of flak, the thunderous explosions ringing in Rarity’s ears as she tried to evade them wildly. “We seem to have been clipped by an anti-aircraft missile, which appears to have set off a full scale assault.” TOM stated matter-of-factly, which just caused Rarity’s eyes to widen more. “Apparently the South Griffienheim military doesn’t take kindly to invasion of airspace. “What? How much damage have I taken?!” “It seems to have disrupted the gyroscopic stabilization, and some damage to the exterior of the suit, Rarity. Give me a moment.” As TOM spoke, Rarity’s wild spinning began to slow as she heard the whirring of gyroscopes amongst the explosions, which continued to dominate the sky around her. “TOM, find me a way out! Countermeasures, something!!!” Rarity shrieked, narrowly missing another flak burst, the metal shrapnel flicking off her suit with several sharp scrapes and sparks. “Deploying flares,” TOM replied, and with a blinding spray of light, dozens of tiny flares spewed forth from slots on Rarity’s legs, filling the sky behind her. As soon as the flares had been deployed, she dived down towards the ground as fast as she could. They can’t hit me if I’m flying low… she thought desperately, veering past a cliff side that was quickly pulverized by a swath of missile fire right on her tail. Rarity looked over her shoulder, eyes widening slightly as she spotted a small flock of griffons right behind her, apparently armed to the teeth with weaponry. “Oh...just great.” Rarity muttered bitterly, before trying to increase her speed.That proved to be difficult, since she was now trapped in what looked like a spire filled canyon, which meant constant dodging and weaving to avoid hitting one of the rock spires, and avoid the hail of what was now machine gun fire from behind her. The griffons apparently were very good shots, as several rounds managed to hit her legs and torso with sharp bangs, causing one of her rockets to sputter out unexpectedly. “TOM, do we have any other countermeasures?” she asked anxiously, narrowly avoiding impact with another rock spire as she lost balance, although the griffon behind her wasn’t as lucky. “At this moment, no. The best option would be to return fire.” Rarity bit her lip, taking a deep breath. “Alright then, TOM, here goes nothing…” with that, she flipped around so that she was flying backwards, firing off several blasts from her repulsors. Fortunately, the blasts found their marks, sending two griffons crashing to the canyon floor below. The remaining griffons all halted mid flap, watching their comrades plummeted groundwards in a swirl of smoke and flame. That seemed to finally scare them off, as they quickly turned tail and flapped away, leaving Rarity behind. Rarity couldn’t help but let out a shout of victory. “Wahahahahaha!” she cheered, thrusting a hoof upwards in victory. “Take that you ruffians!” The crunch of metal against rock cut her off cheer, as she clipped a rock spire and went spiraling through the air with a yelp. She landed with a crash on the top of a nearby mesa, where she let out a yelp of surprise. “I would recommend being aware of one’s surroundings, Miss Rarity.” TOM flatly stated, causing Rarity to roll her eyes. “Obviously so,” she replied, shaking herself off and dragging herself to her feet. “But we’ll address that when we get home. Wouldn’t you say so, TOM?” “I would wager so, Miss Rarity.” Rarity gave a nod. “Well, let’s get out of here. I don’t think I’d like to have more than just a few scouts on my tail. I’m fighting terrorists, not causing international incident.” With that, she ignited the repulsors again, lifting off awkwardly as the fourth refused to cooperate, before pointing herself in the direction of Canterlot. /////////////////////// Fancy Pants leaned back in his chair slightly, letting out a huff of satisfaction when a certain message appeared on-screen. Rarity Belle Computer Online. Access Granted. Then it works, Fancy thought with a smug, self satisfied grin on his face, pleased that the small device he’d planted in Rarity’s office had managed to piggy-back its way into her computer, simply by slipping through the defenses upon the user logging in. Instead of trying to crack open the no doubt heavy amounts of passwords and codes that Rarity no doubt had protecting her hard drive, the device simply enabled Fancy to slip in through whenever a user logged onto the computer, with the user doing all the work of typing in passwords or pin-numbers, therefore leaving the door unlocked for Fancy’s spyware to slip in unnoticed. Fancy idly began to go through the proper backdoor programs, and, with a melodic chime, the hard drive of Rarity’s personal computer in her laboratory appeared on his screen. His eyes scanned the wide array of folders and subfolders that made up the contents of Rarity’s hard drive. Everything from already in-production weaponry to random, half finished sketches for assorted pipe dreams was his for the taking. Fancy’s eyebrows rose. You really ought to look into better cyber security, Rarity dear, he thought amusedly, as his eyes scanned the folders, looking for any indication as to which one Rarity used to store information about the reactor. Surely it must have been somewhere. After all, Rarity was, if anything else, an organized mare, even if her definition of “organized” was somewhat more...scattershot than what Fancy would have preferred. But, at the very least, the names of the folders seemed to be rather easy to discern. A folder labeled “sketches” had just that, and a folder labeled “calendars” had her schedule. She’d cleared out a good three months of it, leaving it simply marked as “personal”. Fancy dismissed it. If she wanted to spend three months of her life continuing to filander about with whomever she pleased, well then more power to her. His eyes, however, suddenly caught on a folder marked “Mark I Development”. He arched an eyebrow. That’s odd… he pondered, clicking the folder to be greeted by a wide array of documents, sketches, and, most surprisingly, video footage. All of which was related to the construction of what looked like powered armor. Powered armor that could fly. Powered armor with weapons. Fancy grinned like a colt in a candy store, readying himself to copy the files over to his personal USB. Who cared if he wasn’t able to find the designs for the crystal. He had found this. A design for powered armor wildly ahead of its time. Why, he could easily repackage it, and single handedly restore any losses the company had suffered from Rarity’s antics. He could see it now: Dozens of new contracts. New deals...new capital. And this time, he wouldn’t need to put up with a mare who’d had some sudden, insufferably pretentious and maudlin attack of conscious. He’d have it all to himself. Just as he was about to copy the folder over, heart filled with giddy glee, the universe threw him a curveball, and he was instead greeted by his computer screen shutting down completely, with the droning noise of the entire building’s electrical supply suddenly cutting off, causing the room to go dark, with the only lighting being provided by the setting sun outside his office window. Fancy muttered curses under his breath, angrily stomping his hoof against the floor. Then, just as suddenly as it had left, the electricity came back on, and Fancy’s eyes darted towards the lights on the ceiling as they began to aggressively flicker on and off again at an increasingly rapid pace, accompanied by a rising buzzing noise. On top of that, at the base of his horn, he could feel a buzzing pressure building. Someone--or something--was using magic, and lots of it. Fancy’s eyebrow knitted in concern as he started towards the door, the hair on the back of his neck beginning to stand up. He was no fool. Something was amiss, and he felt it would be prudent to get himself as far away from the wildly flickering lights as fast as possible. After all, since when were wildly flashing lights ever a good sign? Just as Fancy’s hoof wrapped around the doorknob to open it, the buzzing noise reached full volume, and Fancy was greeted by both a deafening burst of magical feedback, and a borderline blinding aura of glowing blue energy. The pulse of energy caused a shower of sparks to fly everywhere, and Fancy let out a shout of surprise as his hoof jerked away from the doorknob in pain. He spun around, horn flaring as he quickly cast the first defensive spell he could remember, which was nothing more than a basic taser spell. He stopped dead in his tracks when his eyes landed on the sparking, semi-transparent glowing pony that now stood in the middle of the room. It’s entire body seemed to be made out of pure, unbridled crystal blue energy, while it’s eyes glowed bright yellow. “You did this to me.” the strange creature hissed, it’s oddly familiar voice modulating wildly up and down in pitch as it stalked forward, it’s hooves leaving scorch marks on the carpet. Fancy stumbled backwards, completely at a loss for words as to what was happening. “I-wha-what are you talking about?” Fancy finally managed to stammer, heart racing in panic. “What did I do to you?” “You sabotaged me!” the energy pony roared, stomping his hoof on the ground, which sent vibrant arcs of energy flying outwards. Fancy flinched, still trying to piece together who on earth this mysterious maniac was. “I’m sorry, I don’t rememb--” “Of course you don’t!!!!” The energy pony shrieked, slamming his hooves down again. “Nobody remembers me! But guess what?” he stalked up to Fancy, pinning him against the wall. “Everypony will remember me now.” Fancy’s eyes widened as the gears in his head finally clicked together. Now that the mysterious pony was inches away from his face, he could just make out the nest of wires that lead from a ring around the glowing pony’s horn, down to a metal harness on the chest. “Light Bright?!” Fancy gawked, only to receive an ominous nod in response. “Bingo!” The pony, who apparently was Light Bright, snickered. “Seems you finally remember me.” Fancy nodded slightly. He was in a tight spot, that was for sure. For one thing, he still had no idea what Light Bright meant by “sabotaged”, or, most importantly, how in Equestria he’d managed to do...this to himself. “Light Bright...what in Equestria happened to you?” Fancy ventured, making sure to keep himself sounding as calm and collected as possible. Light Bright’s glowing eyes narrowed, and he seemed to clench his teeth. “You undermined my work! Didn’t give me enough time! You and your idiotic deadlines! Couldn't wait, could you? You arrogant bastard! Everything has to be exactly when you say it, regardless of if it’s impossible or not! You knew it, and you deliberately sabotaged my work!” “Light, you’re not making--” Fancy was cut off by Light Bright slamming his hoof into the wall next to Fancy’s head. “YES I AM! You deliberately made sure I didn’t rest, you knew I would get sloppy. You wanted the magical enhancer to backfire, didn’t you? Wanted me out of the way so you could take it for yourself! Well guess what,” Light ranted, shoving himself even closer to Fancy. “It DID backfire...but I guess you could say didn’t quite take me out the way you wanted...could say it gave me...a boost.” “You’re saying that magical harness thing did this?!” Fancy asked incredulously. Light Bright merely nodded, grinning maniacally. “Yes, sir, indeed. You want to know what it did? It made me into mana, Fancy...I’m pure magic now! Do you know what this means? What I can do now? I can make sure you get what’s coming to you!” Fancy’s eyebrows rose. “Now wait just a moment here, Light! It isn’t my fault!” “DON’T LIE TO ME!!!!” Light roared, slamming his hoof into the wall again. “YOU RUSHED ME! DIDN’T LET ME REST!” “But it wasn’t my fault!” Fancy shot back, blurting out the best excuse he could imagine. He had to redirect this crazed maniac’s rage elsewhere...namely to someone who he knew full well Light Bright loathed. “It was Rarity’s.” Fancy felt a palpable sense of relief float through him as Light Bright’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” He growled, holding an ominous, sparking hoof up to Fancy’s face. “What did she do?” he prodded, as Fancy swallowed dryly. “She found out--about our--your project. She was angry. Angry you beat her to the idea! She demanded that she take credit for it. You know how she is. She’s greedy. She’s vain. She couldn’t stand the mere thought of you having a leg up on her. So she would prod me every day about it. ‘How’s the project going?’, ‘Give it to me now’! I tried to give you time, speak on your behalf, but she would have none of it. Eventually, the stress got to me, and I lashed out at you. But rest assured,” Fancy motioned towards Light’s body. “This was most certainly not my intention for you. And I certainly had nothing to do with it.” Light Bright didn’t say anything, merely narrowing his eyes at Fancy for a long, tense moment. His hoof began to descend slowly back down to the floor, and he took a step back, eyes still fixed on Fancy. “That is my honest word,” Fancy added, slowly relaxing himself. “After I’m done with her,” Light Bright began, keeping his eyes narrowed. “I’m coming for you.” With that, the energy pony teleported away in another swirling explosion of sparks and magic, leaving Fancy alone in the burning wreckage of his office. ///////////////////////// Sweetie’s hoof darted to cover her mouth as the feed from Rarity’s suit was cut off by the sudden burst of static and noise. “Rarity! Rarity, are you alright!” Sweetie cried out, eyes widening with increasing fear and panic. Her heart leapt at every discordant sputtering of static, distorted shouting, and metallic crunching sounds. Sweetie stammered, her eyes darting around the screen in a panic as she tried to see if there was something she could do. “It seems we have lost the feed from Miss Rarity,” TOM’s computerized voice spoke, and Sweetie slammed a hoof on the desk. “I know!!!” she cracked her hooves, leaning over the keyboard. Okay Sweetie, stay calm. Rarity is all the way across Equestria. Signal’s bound to get interrupted by something, right? So, just...try to figure out a way to get it back, and maybe I can make it work! She set out typing, nibbling her lip anxiously, trying her best to keep fearful thoughts from her mind. After all, no amount of worrying would magically make the program work again. All she needed to do was keep a level head, and-- Sweetie’s heart came to a grinding, brutal halt as the entire room went pitch black, the cool white lighting being cut off, and instead replaced by darkness. The whirring buzz of the dozens of computer fans all went dead, creating an eerie silence. Sweetie let out a shriek of fear, her horn flaring to light, a tiny bead of light emanating from the tip of her horn. She ended up falling out of the chair she was sitting in, and she stumbled back to her hooves, eyes darting about in fear as she tried to discern what was going on. However, just as swiftly as they had been shut off, the light’s once more flickered on, albeit in an erratic, spastic pattern at the same time, Sweetie felt a sudden tingle run up her spine and right to the tip of her horn. There was a sudden, high pitched, sparkling whine that sounded almost as if someone were casting magic while high on helium as the tone raised in pitch, so did the brightness of the lights. Sweetie stepped away from the computer in fear as a shower of sparks and flashes of lights began to erupt from the machine. Time to panic, she thought, starting towards the door that lead back up to the house. The idea of being trapped down in a basement filled to the brim with experimental, hyper advanced, and most importantly malfunctioning equipment was one that made Sweetie’s desire for leaving all the more apparent. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, but just as her hoof swung the door open, there was an explosion of light, sound and raw magical energy. Sweetie stumbled forwards, her hoof wrapped around the doorknob in a panic and slamming it behind her with a crash. As she slumped down against the closed door, her chest heaving as she tried to regain her lost breath, the sound of something growling in a guttural, heaving way came from behind the door. “Where are you, Rarity?” the voice hissed, the sound followed by metal being smashed and tossed asides. Sweetie tensed as she heard the thrumming hum of magical energy growing closer and closer to the door, as the mysterious voice continued to mutter. “Come out, come out wherever you are…” More metal crashing and a rage filled roar followed, as Sweetie bolted to her hooves and started up the stairs, her horn lighting the way as best it could. She wrapped her hoof around the doorknob at the top of the stairs, only to have it firmly resist her attempts. I’m trapped! She slammed her forehead against the door, the sheer gravity of the situation finally hitting her. She was now trapped in a pitch-black stairwell, with doors locked at both ends, and on the opposite of the door to the basement, some sort of magical...thing. A thing that apparently had it out for Rarity. This was a no win situation. Plain and simple.