//------------------------------// // Entry 34: The Second Protocol // Story: MLDC: Firestorm Crisis // by Michael_Ravencroft //------------------------------// It had taken a full thirty minutes before Twilight calmed down enough to allow both her big brother, and her mentor/first father, to speak about their experience. However, before any of that, Sunset had the unfortunate luck to be grilled by Shining Armor and Bill Neigh. Apparently once Twilight told them they were dating it had sparked Shining Armor’s “Big Brother Mode” and immediately started giving Sunset that particular glare that most older siblings give the person their younger sibling is dating. “So…Sunset Shimmer, you and Twily are really a thing?” Shining Armor asked. “Well…yeah, we are, I-I promise I’ve been doing my best as her girlfriend!” Sunset admitted. Shining Armor’s eyes glowered her, analyzing her, looking for a flaw or hint that she was lying, it didn’t help that he was in full combat gear. Although they’ve faced some pretty scary enemies, and despite fact that Sunset had her magic back on top of her Firestorm powers, Shining Armor had to be the scariest opponent thus far. But that was only half of the intimidation, as Bill Neigh was also giving her a steely eyed glare from his sitting position on the rock a few feet away. “I…I hope you’re not disappointed in me?” Twilight asked. Professor Neigh glanced to his former ward with confusion. “In you, never my Dear. Why would you think that?” “Because…well…I know a relationship with another female isn’t exactly…practical, or what you had in mind when you wanted me to have a normal life.” Professor Neigh chuckled at Twilight and rubbed the top of her head. “‘Normal’ is relative my young Twilight. I only hoped that you would have friends and live life, to find out that you have not only friends, but are in a romantic relationship, is beyond what I expected. I am very proud of you.” Twilight blushed and smiled happily from the praise of her former teacher. The nerdy girl then took a look back at Shining Armor and deadpanned. “Shiny, leave Sunny alone. Besides you need to tell us what happened! I thought you two were dead for so long!” Shining Armor and Professor Neigh both glanced to the other, releasing a synced sigh they relented to tell them what occurred that night. “Well, the mission was going well, for a bit. Then the whole thing went south and became a cluster. The rest of my squad was killed off, I don’t know by what but there was a strange music sound coming from the comms,” said Shining Armor. Sunset tensed upon hearing this. Strange music…? The Sirens were at that base when Shining Armor was?! Don’t know why I’m surprised, they didn’t hide the fact that they worked for the Organization, at least they didn’t get him. “The Captain and I were in a cargo loading bay, from there I sent you the rocket with the Matrix, but…” MONTHS AGO, DELTA BASE… Shining Armor and Professor Neigh stood in shock at what they saw. Dusk Shine, after uttering the activation word, had transformed into a Firestorm. His suit was a dark violet, with a dimly colored red sun, with six smaller red orbs surrounding it. Around his hands and forearms were gauntlets made of a shiny amethyst metal, the same material that acted as his boots. The cloth around his arms and legs was a dark gray, while his head of fire hair, unlike other Firestorms, was not restrained by a helmet or cowl, it flowed freely. A brilliant purple flame with a flicker of pink in it, short yet still bellowing with all due power. Dusk Shine narrowed his eyes and smiled in wicked glee as he looked upon his transformed self, flexing his digits and rolling his shoulders as he adjusted to his new form. “I must say, Professor, I never imagined how much power these would give, it’s almost overwhelming.” Professor Neigh shook his head in disbelief, it was utterly impossible. “How were you able to recreate it?!” The violet Firestorm chuckled superiorly at that question. “I made it my business to know everything about the Firestorm Protocol, it’s a work of art! However, your Matrix is by far the better, I can only imitate your work, creating these Protocols. But unlike yours, which requires two hosts to contain its power, mine only need one.” “The Protocols will not bring you the salvation you seek Dusk! You have the chance to be better, I can find a way to save you, come with us!” Professor Neigh pleaded. Dusk Shine narrowed his eyes. “No, I realized relying on others is a wasted effort. In the end all you can trust is yourself, everyone else is either an enemy or someone to control. Now Professor, I still find you a useful asset and I’d rather not kill you outright. Surrender now and we’ll chalk this up to cooperation under duress.” Shining Armor pointed his pistol at Dusk Shine, firing two rounds. The bullets flew towards Dusk, but before they even reached him they melted into molten slag before turning into ash. Dusk Shine sighed as he looked to the soldier. “Alright you get three strikes, I’ll give you that one, you have three left,” said Dusk. Shining Armor wasted no time, holstering this pistols and unsheathing this sword at the same time. He dashed towards Dusk Shine and brought down his sword in an overhead strike, as the blade came down it made contact with the left side of Dusk’s neck. When Shining Armor pushed forward the metal bent and curved, the marine jumped back and looked upon his weapon, which was now looking like a piece of scrap metal now. “That’s one,” said Dusk. Shining Armor reached for his belt and detached two grenades, he then hit the buttons on each one and tossed them right at Dusk Shine. Once the grenades got to within an inch of him, they exploded, creating a cloud of fire and smoke that shrouded him. “That’s not going to work, Captain!” Professor Neigh shouted. “Then what else are we going to do?!” Shining Armor asked. Professor Neigh looked about, relenting, he hurried back to the rocket, accessing another compartment to the rocket and pulled out an orb of red light. Shining Armor’s eyes widened when he saw this, it was similar to the Firestorm Protocol that was in the rocket, but it was different. It had an ethereal glow to it, almost as if the energies that comprised this were otherworldly. “Professor?” “I had hoped to complete this one with the other, but right now if we don’t make it out then the world will plunge into a fiery nightmare!” Shining Armor and Professor Neigh heard rumbling sounds coming from the cloud of smoke. The old professor looked to the young captain, an understanding passed through them at that moment, prompting Shining Armor to place his hand on the glowing orb. The crimson sphere glowed brighter as if responding to their wills, the dust cloud was suddenly blown away by a thunderous force that also extinguished the flames surrounding him. “That’s two marine, make the next one coun – WHAT IS THAT?!” Dusk Shine shouted. “Fighting fire with fire,” said Shining Armor. “Together, Captain!” “FIRESTORM!!!” The crimson orb exploded in a blinding ray of fiery light. The hue of the light began to change rapidly, becoming a cool azure blue. The blue flames then recollected themselves, forming a body made of plasma fire. Orange, almost tribal markings appeared on his body, black pants formed, followed by a vermillion cape made of fiery orange-red plasma that wafted in the ethereal winds generated by his power. “I am, born Nu,” said the Firestorm as he opened his white glowing eyes. Dusk Shine took a step back, not understanding what he witnessed. He could feel a strange power coming off this being, it was definitely more powerful, but was it due to the fact that it was comprised of two beings or was it the properties of the Firestorm Protocol? “Very tricky Professor!” Dusk Shine declared as he raised his right hand, preparing to fire a plasma fire beam. Just then, Nu Firestorm teleported right in front of Dusk Shine, making the violet atomic warrior’s eyes widen with surprise. Nu tsked and wagged his finger back and forth in a disapproving fashion. “I still have one more strike, Dusk.” Swift as lightning, Nu Firestorm placed his right palm against Dusk’s chest. In an instant a bright blue light formed at the point of contact, and after a second a pulse was fired, sending Dusk Shine soaring to the other end of the room until he slammed against the side of the wall. Nu Firestorm teleported again, appearing next to the rocket and inputted the coordinates. With the push of a button the rocket was fired and sent up the shoot, Nu nodded knowing the other Protocol would not fall into Dusk’s hands. Suddenly, Dusk Shine erupted from the wall, and landed back at his original spot with a thunderous BOOM. His eyes blazed with fury as he looked upon the new being before thrusting both hands forward and unleashing an infernal torrent of plasma fire upon Nu Firestorm. The blue warrior waved his left hand in front of him, erecting a barrier to block the onslaught. “I’m bored with this,” said Nu Firestorm as he teleported away and allowed the flames to engulf everything else. PRESENT… “Little did we know that Nu had a mind of his own,” said Professor Neigh. “We tried to unfuse, but that wasn’t happening, we realized that we were now trapped inside of him,” said Shining Armor. Twilight and Sunset had listened to all of this, drinking it in. The giant burned hole in the cargo area now made sense, however, the way that Nu fought, it made Sunset skeptical about the properties of the Firestorm Matrix inside them. However, there was a the weird thing about this lookalike. “This ‘Dusk Shine’, you said he looks like Twilight, who is he?” Sunset asked. Professor Neigh sighed. “After the Captain and his team raided the other base some years back, they attempted to recreate Twilight with what little genetic code they had left over. They decided to make this version male so that he’d be more obedient and loyal, and ruthless.” “However, in rushing to recreate her, they incidentally – for lack of a better term – screwed up his genes. His telomere levels are low, and because of it, his body ages faster than most, he’s slowly dying, but I fear it won’t be long before he goes,” said Professor Neigh. Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing, the voice coming from the androids she had fought in Applejack’s orchard, was her gender swapped clone. “You’re saying I have a little brother?!” “Of sorts.” “Professor, besides the fact that there’s a homicidal male version of Sparky here,” said Sunset. “If I’m understanding the Firestorm Matrixes. What you’re telling me is that you created not one, but two unique Matrixes. What exactly makes yours different, because honestly, it feels…different. The atomic energy structure of Nu is different from Twilight’s and mine when we go Firestorm.” The corner of Professor Neigh’s mouth curled into a smile. “Very observant Ms. Shimmer, and astute. I see why you have taken a liking to her, Twilight.” Twilight blushed noticeably, making Sunset bump her lover with her shoulder teasingly. “Yes, Nu is a different kind of existence. While researching the ‘god particle’ I found a different energy source that seemed to move with it. It was tangible yet intangible, powerful and with a life of its own. It…It was hard to describe, if I had to wager a guess I’d have to call it –” “Magic,” said Sunset. “You found a way to create a magic based Firestorm Matrix?!” Professor Neigh raised an eyebrow at that notion. “Ms. Shimmer, please, magic is but a simplified explanation for early man make sense of forces that they were otherwise unable to explain.” Twilight timidly raised her hand, with a pensive look on her face. “I…I hate to disagree with you, Professor. But I have witnessed this magic, at first I was skeptical, but after recent events I’ve found that there are forces that cannot be explained by science alone. Especially when those forces are a part of you.” Shining Armor also looked skeptical, although he has seen his fair share of weird and strange in his years of military service, the existence of magic was still a hard pill to swallow without proof. “Well, Twily, how do you know?” “Because I’m from another dimension populated by sapient ponies, I was a unicorn so I was pretty much born to use magic. In my dimension there’s a double of Twilight who’s a princess and pretty powerful magic user as well, as well as we have a an ruler who’s an alicorn – a pony with wings and a horn – who can move the sun and moon.” Professor Neigh and Shining Armor stared at Sunset dumbfounded. Both looked to Twilight to see if there was a punchline at the end of the joke, but Twilight didn’t snicker or snort, absolutely no signs that this was some joke, and Sunset wasn’t any different, saying all that with a straight face and not even once cracking a smile. “Well…Ms. Shimmer, as any good scientist will tell ask, do you have proof of this?” Sunset snapped her fingers and immediately she disappeared in a flash of aquamarine light. She then reappeared standing behind Shining Armor and Professor Neigh, startling them both. Sunset teleported again, appearing on a tree branch overhead. She then jumped off the branch plummeting several feet in just a few short seconds, but right before she hit the ground, Sunset stopped. Her body was enveloped in the same colored magical aura, which then slowly raised her up and repositioned her so that she was standing on her feet. “Enough proof, Professor?” “Um…Well…I…” Professor Neigh stuttered. “Ha, I stumped the teacher, do I get any brownie points for that Sparky?” Sunset asked with a smirk. Twilight rolled her eyes but smiled back at her lover. “Well, maybe a few, but I’ll have to dock some off. He’s still my first father.” “Ouch, harsh,” Shining Armor was still trying get used to the fact not only did his adopted little sister have a girlfriend, but said girlfriend was the very same girl who was regarded as a terror of the school she attended. Still, Shining Armor had to admit, he definitely noticed a glow about her, a familiar glow. One that he had seen that he and Cadence…Oh sweet Christmas they didn’t?! “Anyway, it sounds like we have a similar problem. During a fight Sunset and I fused into……a creature called Hel. She acted on her own will, and killed the enemy we were fighting, but she was highly sadistic, and demonic in look,” said Twilight with a shudder. Professor Neigh nodded to this. “That would explain those odd spikes in energy that Nu sensed from halfway across the world, we also sensed two more spikes in power, which was what drew him here initially.” Sunset raised her hand. “Yeah, that would be us too. Somehow our magic interacted with the Matrix inside us and we were able to pull two of our friends into a fusion and became two different Firestorms, one was Iris and the other was Gaia. Neither of our friends even had Protocols.” Sunset and Twilight could see the gears turning in Professor Neigh’s head, an excited grin started to form as his love of science and understanding began to take over, finding it fascinating how his Matrix had evolved in such a short of amount of time. “Anyway, it looks like you two are okay with it, have you fused any other times after that?” Shining Armor asked. “NO!” Twilight answered, albeit a bit louder than she had wanted. The nerdy girl took note of her brother’s reaction and quickly backpedaled. “I mean, no, we haven’t. We’ve tried to avoid fusing like that again, I honestly don’t want to become Hel again, she was…” Sunset sighed, despite their unlocking and accepting of the chakras, the memories of Hel still left scars on them both. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience, to say the least.” Shining Armor wanted to probe further, but decided to drop it, seeing as how the last thing he wanted was to see his little sister break down. “Fair enough, but how about we switch topics to something a little more on the light side. How long have you two been dating?” Twilight blushed at that question. “A couple of months now, but if you want to get technical we were hanging out a little before that.” “Huh, alright, so right around the time of that science fair project,” said Shining Armor as he nodded. “How’d that go by the way?” “We would’ve won, but someone set off a sound wave cannon and blew the roof off the expo, literally. But we managed to woo them a little with our mini-reactor, they used it to power the auditorium while repairs were being made and people were cleaning up,” said Sunset as she started to blush. “And I guess that’s when we started to make it official.” Shining Armor nodded again, watching the reactions of both girls closely, checking for signs that either one was lying. Twilight was a terrible liar so he wasn’t worried, but he took extra precaution when reading Sunset, the girl looked like she had a lot of practice had keeping a poker face, but she did seem more relaxed and loose around Twilight. “Twilight, can I talk to you for a minute? In private?” Shining Armor asked. Twilight blinked in confusion but otherwise nodded and followed her big brother until they were a yard or two away, close enough to see but far enough that their words were barely above a whisper. Sunset and Professor Neigh watched as the two exchanged dialogue. Shining Armor rubbed the back of his head as if asking something embarrassing. Twilight then reacted with a gasp and had said loudly “SHINY!” which was then followed by a shove. Sunset raised an eyebrow when she saw Twilight blush profusely as her big brother seemed to be asking her forgiveness. Twilight then stomped her way back to Sunset and sat with her arms crossed and her lips forming a pouty face. Shining Armor returned to his sitting position next to Professor Neigh, looking a bit defeated in that moment. Sunset looked between the two siblings and sighed. “I give up, what happened?” “He asked if we’ve slept together,” said Twilight in a huff. “Ooookay,” Sunset looked over to Shining Armor and shot him a devious smile. “Well, I can see why you’d ask, she’s cute, hot, and quite the animal in bed.” Twilight thought it was impossible for her face to get any redder, but she was proven wrong. “SUNSET SHIMMER!!!” “Yeah, it was kind of like that when she – MMMPH!” Twilight quickly placed her hands over Sunset’s both to stifle any more embarrassing details to be told about their night together. She looked across to Shining Armor and Professor Neigh, her big brother looked a bit uncomfortable now having heard all that. However, the Professor seemed more intrigued than anything. “Huh, fascinating, I was unsure if you would even be able to have such relations with another person, but clearly you have even the basic of needs as any other person. I’m glad the fact that you were artificially generated hasn’t stymied your sexual development either,” said Professor Neigh in professional tone. Sunset moved Twilight’s hands and looked to the Professor curiously. “Wait, you weren’t sure if she’d be interested in sex?” “Well no, I believe that drive to procreate is hardwired into our psyche one way or another, but I am unsure if she can bear children, to be honest I’m not one-hundred percent sure of what the Organization did as far as her biology,” said Professor Neigh. Twilight groaned in embarrassment, hiding her face in her hands as she listened to her girlfriend and her first father figure discuss her biological ability to have children or to even – If there is a higher power, please make this conversation end now! As if by divine providence, a light began to blink at the center of both Professor Neigh and Shining Armor’s chests. A light that made both Twilight and Sunset spring to their heels. “What’s happening,” asked Sunset. “It looks like our time’s up, Nu wants to come back,” said Shining with a disappointed sigh. “At least we got to stretch our legs a bit,” said Professor Neigh. “Wait, we can stop this, if Sunset and I transform we can remove the Protocol inside you!” Twilight insisted. The Professor shook his head. “It would not work, Twilight. Nu is sapient, aware. He will not go so easily, I fear his consciousness may affect your own Matrix should you absorb it.” “No…’ Twilight whispered in dismay, tears starting to form in her eyes. Shining Armor walked up to Twilight and wiped away the tears she shed with his right thumb. “Hey, don’t worry, Nu’s not all that bad, and we’re still alive, remember that. With my skill and the Prof’s brains, none of the Organization cronies can touch us.” “I just got you both back…there has to be way,” said Twilight. Professor Neigh walked up to Twilight, and patted her on the head. “Now, now, no more tears, we’re alive, and that’s what counts. We’ll still be watching over you, it’ll just be as a new entity. Alright?’ Twilight sniffled a little more, but in the end smiled and nodded. Shining Armor then turned to Sunset Shimmer and gave her a serious look. “You’ll look after her right, you’ll protect her?” “Of course I will,” said Sunset. “Remember this as well, Dusk Shine is more dangerous than the Organization as a whole. He’s gained a disdain for life, and I can only imagine what he has planned.” The Professor warned. Sunset and Twilight took this information to heart, remembering their recent bouts. Shining Armor and Professor Neigh took a few steps back and clasped their hands together, and yelled as one. “FIRESTORM!!!” Blue and orange flames erupted around Shining Armor and Professor Neigh, the flames then took shape, forming a single person. Nu returned with his vermillion plasma cape flapping in the wind generated by his summoning. Nu turned around and saw the saddened expression on Twilight’s face, sending a pang of guilt in his heart. “Look…I’m not bad guy, and I’m not oblivious to what’s going on. But can you understand that I want to live? I’m my own person, I can think and feel, and I’d like to see this world and the people in it,” said Nu. Nu began to rise up, floating in the air and looking down at Twilight and Sunset. “If you guys ever need my help, just call me with your magic, and I’ll come running!” Sunset rolled her eyes but allowed herself a small grin. Twilight smiled back at Nu, although there were some tears still in her eyes. With that, Nu zoomed off into the blue sky, creating a sonic boom from the sudden acceleration. Sunset looked to her girlfriend and rested a hand on her shoulder. “You gonna be alright, Sparky?” Sunset asked with genuine concern. “I-I think so. Nu doesn’t seem to be a bad fusion, and besides, my brother and the Professor are alive! They’re alive!” Twilight proclaimed happily as she enveloped Sunset in a hug. Sunset chuckled and kissed the top of Twilight’s forehead. “C’mon, let’s head home. I’m sure the girls no doubt saw that go down are probably tearing their hair out with worry.” “Yeah, well, that, and we have a lot of homework to make up.” Sunset groaned. “You just had to remind me of that!”